Faith Kipyegon: motherhood and track glory!
(Courtesy of Olympics.com)
By the time she turned 22, Faith Kipyegon had
tasted world and Olympic glory, but she still craved more.
The Kenyan star wanted the
world record, especially in the 1500m, an event she had ruled since Rio 2016 where she won her first Olympic gold.
After making history at the
London 2017 World Athletics Championships as the first Kenyan woman to
win the 1500m, Kipyegon took a maternity break. The double Olympic champion
managed to train until she was about five months along, but the delivery was
traumatic.
Kipyegon needed an emergency
Caesarean section to deliver her daughter Alyn in June 2018. There
were moments the athlete worried if she could ever compete again.
“I was so afraid,
[thinking], ‘Maybe I will not come back, I will just disappear',” she said.
But Kipyegon did return to
competition, exactly one year later, and was the surprise winner of the
Prefontaine Classic just two months before taking silver at the 2019 Worlds.
At the Tokyo 2020
Olympics she
retained her champion status and a year later captured the world title in
Eugene.
The three-time world
medallist has gone unbeaten since then, and this year she found another
breakthrough – rewriting not one but three world records. Kipyegon is now the
fastest woman ever in the 1500m, 5000m and mile events.
“[I proved that] you can
take a maternity break and come back even stronger. Before I gave birth to
Alyn, I never ran a world record, but now I am here with Alyn and the world
record. I want to be an inspiration to many,” she said in a recent interview with Olympics.com, explaining how motherhood has helped her
develop mental resilience in her races.
Kipyegon is now well on the
way to becoming the most decorated 1500m female star, as she eyes an
unprecedented third world title at Budapest 2023, and a third straight
Olympic gold next year in Paris.
CHILDREN of Kenya’s Rift Valley were born to run and become world champions. Without the Rift Valley athletes, there is very little or no history of Kenya athletics. Those who saw the magnificent Kipchoge Keino run (and I did from the very first day he ran in competition) will never forget the majesty of the athlete who wrote Kenya’s first chapters of athletics. Many others followed and to this day many continue to follow in Kip’s footsteps.
Daniel arap Moi, a teacher who was
to become vice president and later president of Kenya, first some athletes
training at Jeane’s School Kabete. He saw the potential for the Rift Valley and
on his return visited every school and urged them to start training. In fact,
most children already had, they had to run miles up and down the hills from
home to school and back. Thus the legend was born.
Faith Kipyegon ran barefoot as
most children did in the very early days. Yet Faith was doing it in the much
more emancipated 2010. She made her international debut at the World Cross
Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, competing against older athletes.
She finished fourth in the women’s junior race. Later that year she finished 3rd
in the 1500 metres at the Kenyan World Junior Championships Trials in Nairobi.
The rest is history.
She is married to fellow Kenyan
middle-distance runner Timothy Kitum.
In 2010, at
age 16, a barefooted Kipyegon made her international debut at the World Cross
Country Championships held in Bydgoszcz, Poland, competing against athletes up to three
years her senior. She placed fourth in the women's junior race as the youngest finisher in the top
21, and earned the gold medal with her under-20 team (it was a Kenyan 1–4
sweep).[9][10] Later that year, she showed her track potential by finishing third in the 1500 metres at the Kenyan World Junior Championship
Trials in Nairobi. (Wikipedia)
At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Kipyegon won a gold medal in the 1500 m. She
also won a gold medal in the 1500 m at the 2017, 2022 and 2023 World Athletics
Championships and in the 5000 m at the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
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