Faith Kipyegon: why the history-maker is beloved by rivals
The Kenyan's 'heart melted' when she saw her competitors waiting to celebrate with her after completing a lap of honour on claiming the 1500m world record.
Athletics
The group of athletes drawn together at the finish line were screaming, smiling, and hugging each other with delight.
Yet they weren't a team of relay runners from the same nation celebrating a medal for their country, but a multitude of nations coming together to celebrate a rival.
In the midst of said joyful moment was one Faith Kipyegon who had just set a new world record in the women's 1500m at the Florence Diamond League.
She'd returned from her lap of honour after setting the mark of 3:49.11 to see her competitors smiling and waiting to celebrate with her.
“This is the way to go for real sportsmanship in our sports,” said an emotional Kipyegon. “To see them waiting for me, that melts my heart.”
The Kenyan, who takes part in the Diamond League Final of 2024 in Brussels, Switzerland from 13-14 September, broke the eight-year-old record of 3:50.07 set by Ethiopia's Genzebe Dibaba, just a year before the Olympic Games Paris 2024, a period in which athletes are usually jostling for supremacy, not celebrating together, which made the moment all the more special.
But that is the draw of Kipyegon, a three-time world champion in the distance, plus holder of a trio of Olympic titles, including at the recently concluded Paris 2024 where she also added silver in the 5,000m.
Not only did her fellow athletes know what a special performance the world record took, but also what a special person Kipyegon is too.
Faith Kipyegon of Kenya celebrates with athletes after victory in the women's 1500m and world record during the Diamond League in Florence, Italy on 2 June 2023
Early years for barefoot runner Faith Kipyegon
The eighth of nine children, Kipyegon grew up on a farm near the small town of Keringet in the Kenyan Rift Valley.
A competitive soul, the youngster initially played football, and did gymnastics until a teacher introduced her to running.
“How I started athletics was like magic or something," Kipyegon told Olympics.com ahead of Paris 2024. "I started running and knowing that athletics might [get] me somewhere.”
She wasn't wrong.
Her history-making exploits have made waves across the sporting community for the athlete who started off running barefoot, but a new dream was also realised.
“I want to do my best and motivate the young girls and young women to know that Faith has come a long way, and she’s still performing at the Olympic level and getting these medals, especially the gold medal,” she said.
In 2018, Kipyegon made the decision to step away from the track to start a family, in the still relatively untested scenario, even six years ago, of an athlete coming back to the track after having a baby and managing the changes to the body a pregnancy entails.
Already an Olympic and world 1500m champion in 2016 and 2017, respectively, Kipyegon returned to the sport following a 21-month absence having given birth to daughter Alyn.
The new mum claimed world silver and retained her Olympic title at Tokyo 2020, in 2021, on her return.
“I want to motivate the women and young athletes around the world – not just in Africa – to follow their hearts and work on their careers,” Kipyegon told Athletics Weekly.
"I want to show them the right way and I want them to follow in my footsteps. I want to be their mentor and for them to think ‘Faith Kipyegon is a great woman. I want to do things like Faith.’"
Faith inspires faith
Some of those very women were the ones waiting trackside after Kipyegon's stunning world record in Italy.
Britain's Laura Muir, who was beaten by Kipyegon to Olympic gold in Japan, said in an interview with Scottish Athletics: “When you’re trying to stick with the world record-holder, it’s going to be tough! I’m just so happy for Faith, she deserves that so much.”
Muir has continued to be one of the closest witnesses to Kipyegon's heroics on the track, the fast pace helping the Scot to repeatedly rewrite her own national records.
When Kipyegon broke the world record again a year later, lowering it to 3:49.04 at the Paris Diamond League, just weeks before the Games were set to begin, Muir secured a British record time of 3:53.79 to finish third in the same race.
"I think that is four in a row now where I’ve raced and Faith has set the world record," laughed Muir, referencing the 5000m and one-mile records that Kipyegon set in a fantastical seven-week period in July 2023.
"Maybe I am her lucky charm. It is amazing from her and so nice to be part of these races."
The super-competitive Muir will have ambitions of her own bubbling away in an effort to take down Kipyegon in the 2025 season, but there's one last blow out for many of the athletes at the Diamond League Final of 2024 in Brussels, including Kipyegon.
Australia's Jess Hull, the second-place finisher to Kipyegon and in front of Muir at that iconic Diamond League race – finishing in an Oceania record time of 3:50.83, the fifth fastest all-time performance in the distance – will also be there.
Hull also claimed a first Olympic middle-distance medal on the track for more than half a century, winning silver, behind Kipyegon who secured gold with an Olympic record, at Paris 2024.
“[Kipyegon] is just class," said Hull, who was also one of those congratulating Kipyegon at the finish line after the world record in Italy. "We’re getting closer but she’s still the next level and she’s the triple Olympic champion now, so if you are going to get beat by anybody, I’m more than happy for it to be her,” said Hull.
Ireland's Ciara Mageean, a double European 1500m medallist, was also blown away by being part of the history-making world-record race, and likely spoke for all Kipyegon's rivals on that day.
“I crossed that line and I saw ‘world record’ and I was like ‘holy moly’," Mageean told Athletics Weekly. "To be in a race where a world record was broken and to go to such an amazing woman is just fantastic."