Peres JEPCHIRCHIR

Peres Jepchirchir achievements make for an impressive reading.

Olympic marathon champion, two-time World Half Marathon champion, three career world records, and two Major Marathon winner. All these at 28.

The young girl, who grew up in a remote Kenyan farm in Kosaji in Turbo, started running in school on track before switching to cross-country. Jepchirchir who dropped out of school due to lack of fees, saw road running as a way to thrive in a large polygamous family of 24.

She burst into the local scene as a second-place finisher behind Faith Kipyegon at the 2014 National Cross-Country Championships, just a year after a low-key marathon debut in Kenya.

After string of roada races, she led a 1-2-3 sweep of medals at the 2016 World Half Cross Country Championships, the second time ever in the event history that a country had won all available medals in the women’s event.

In February 2017, she sped to the first world record of her career. Even more impressive is that she lowered the half marathon world record by seven seconds in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, when she was a few weeks pregnant and gave birth to her daughter eight months later in October.