With 250 meters left in the women’s 5,000m final at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest on the 23rd, Faith Kipyegon faces notable rivals: Olympic champion Sifan Hassan, defending world champion Gudav Tsegei and cross-country world champion Beatriz Chebet. He was chasing three people.
The heels are from bright pink running spikes, and Kipyegon is celebrating his historic double crown with Kenya’s incredible 12-and-a-half-hour finish at the World Athletics Museum ( MOWA). Final lap.
Faith Kipyegon shoes
The grim affair culminated in a thrilling culmination that threw all the main athletes into contention in perhaps the most demanding women’s 5000m race in history.
For Kipyegon, at the culmination of a season spent chasing the clock, helplessly trailing the light of waves on the side of the course, this was a raw test of his ability to race at distances he was still unfamiliar with.
First ever double participation in the 1500m and 5000m at the World Championships
Indeed, four days earlier, the then 29-year-old had won her third consecutive 1500m world championship title. But it was in her specialty distance, where she happened to win two Olympic gold medals, as well as boasting a new world record.
And yes, the farm girl from Nakuru County in the Great Rift Valley has become the fastest woman ever to run 5,000 meters. However, that 14:05.20 was achieved in a world record attempt organized at the Paris Diamond League on June 9th, and her incredible hat, which she set in June and July, was It’s the second leg of Trick, and it’s reminiscent of Sebastian Coe and Henry Rono back in the day.
This time, winning was all that mattered. And the pressure was on in the fierce competition at the World Athletics Championships.
With half a lap to go, Tsegay disappeared, and his winning effort in the 10,000m final was wasted. But Hassan and Chebet backed down.
Kipyegon picked up the pace at the front with 180 meters to go and could not afford to take his foot off the gas as he rounded the final corner.
She was chased by Hassan all the way down the home straight, but crossed the line in 14:53.88, 0.33 seconds clear of the tenacious Dutchman. She ran the final lap in 56.69 seconds and the final 200 meters in 27.12 seconds.
It was a fierce battle between two giants who are breaking down barriers in the women’s long-distance running world. It was a fitting way for Kipyegon to make his mark in the record books as the first athlete to win both the 1500m and 5000m at the World Championships.
Hisham El Guerrouj won gold medals in both distances at the 2004 Athens Olympics, but the Moroccan prodigy, who is the fastest of all time at 1500 meters and the mile, never won gold at the World Athletics Championships.
He won the 1500m at the 2003 Paris Games, but lost in the 5000m final to 18-year-old Eliud Kipchoge. Coincidentally, 20 years later, Kipchoge is playing a key role in Faith Chepgetich Kipyegon’s burgeoning success story.
“Making history today and winning two gold medals at the championships is what I dreamed of this season,” said Kipchoge, the two-time Olympic marathon champion, under the guidance of former international steeplechase Patrick Sun. said Kipyegon, who trains with him. Kaptagat NN running group.
“I was patiently waiting to break the world record and win two gold medals, and it was a dream come true.”
Faith Kipyegon wins the 5000m at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest on 23rd (©AFP/Getty Images)
historic 1500m triple
The first part of what was ultimately a hard-earned double was achieved a little more easily on the part of the incomparable Kipyegon.
In the 1,500m final in Budapest, she controlled proceedings from the front from start to finish, gradually picking up the pace before kicking hard in front of the finish line, opening up an unassailable lead with 200 meters to go.
He had no trouble finishing on the home straight, finishing in 3:54.87, comfortably ahead of young Ethiopian Diribe Weltay, who came in second in 3:55.69. Hassan finished quickly and won the bronze medal in 3 minutes 56.00 seconds, allaying the disappointment of a potential victory in the 10,000 meters on the opening night. It was an amazing feat by a woman who overcame mid-race cramps to win the marathon. She made her debut just four months ago in London, where she clocked a time of 2:18:33.
“My plan was to control the race and defend the title,” Kipyegon said. “I was chasing the title again, chasing history.”
As in the 5000m, the 5ft 2in Kenyan had a fluid, perfectly balanced, high-temperature running style that helped him achieve his historic feat in the 1500m.
No woman had ever achieved a hat-trick of world championship long-distance titles before. Algeria’s Hassiba Bourmelka, Russia’s Tatiana Tomashova and Bahrain’s Mariam Jamal won twice over long distances.
Mr. Kipyegon His first 1,500m title was won in London in 2017, and his second in Oregon in 2022. Meanwhile, in Doha 2019, on her way back after the birth of her daughter Alin, she won a silver medal behind Hassan.
Paris 2024 – “Big Fish…Big Legacy”
El Guerrouj won the world 1500m title four times (1997, 1999, 2001, 2003), while Kipyegon’s success in the 5000m matched Morocco’s number of world championship gold medals. She also has one more Olympic gold medal than he achieved, winning over 1,500 meters in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021.
Kipyegon is already one of only three athletes to hold an Olympic 1500m title, following in the footsteps of Coe, who won the men’s race in 1980 and 1984, and Tatyana Kazankina, who won the women’s race in 1976 and 1980. He is one of them.
At next year’s Paris Games, Kipyegon will have the chance to win her first of three Olympic gold medals in the 1500 meters, which would elevate her status at the pinnacle of middle-distance to divine heights.
Faith Kipiegon celebrates winning the 1500m at the Tokyo Olympics (© Getty Images)
“That’s the big fish,” she said, looking to 2024. “If I can achieve three consecutive Olympic titles in the 1500 meters, that will be motivation for the next generation. And that will be a big motivation for me to try to achieve it.
“It’s going to leave a big legacy. It’s going to be something different.”
That’s certainly true. Kipyegon now has five world 1500m titles.
Only one other woman has won three rights. In 2007 she won the World Championship in 2009 and Jamal won the Olympic Games in 2012.
On the men’s side, El Guerrouj won five titles in the 1500 meters, four of them at the World Championships and one at the Olympics. Noureddine Morceli managed a total of four championships: three world championships and one Olympics.
amazing faith
But whatever happens in 2024, and indeed beyond, the legacy Kipyegon has amassed since he first stepped onto the international stage as a barefoot 16-year-old at the 2010 World Athletics Cross Country Championships has already It has become quite significant. In Bydgoszcz.
In the U20 women’s race, she competed against rivals three years older than her and finished fourth in Kenya’s 1-2-3-4, winning her first global gold medal in the team event.
The following year, Kipiegon won the individual title in Punta Umbria and also won the U18 world 1500m title in Villeneuve d’Ascq. In 2012 she was crowned U20 world champion in the 1500m, and she returned to Bydgoszcz in 2013, where she won her second world U20 cross country title in sub-zero temperatures. She became the third athlete to retain the title, following her compatriot Viola Kibiwott and an Ethiopian athlete. Genzebe Dibaba.
Kipyegon, who started his world record in Florence on June 2 last year, beat Dibaba’s 1,500m time of 3:50.07 as an 8-year-old.
She became the first woman to break the 3:50 barrier in the 1500 meters, and if a time of 3:49.11 wasn’t enough for Banisterescu’s feat, she went on to do so with an incredible 4:07.64. He beat Hassan’s mile record by more than four seconds. Monaco on July 21 – She equals New Zealander Jack Lovelock’s men’s world record at the 1933 Princeton Games. During that time, a world record was set in the 5,000 meters in Paris with a time of 14:05.20.
Kipyegon becomes the fifth player to become an individual world champion and set a senior world record at U18, U20 and senior level, following Usain Bolt, Mondo Duplantis, Elena Isinbayeva and Kevin Mayer.
Still, she remained a woman of the people. So badly injured were her rivals that after she achieved the 1500m world record in Florence, they held her horizontally in their arms and took a commemorative “team” photo of her. She was very popular among the people.
It was a snapshot that says a thousand words about the incredible Faith Kipyegon.
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