1. Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon was born on 10 January 1994 and is a Kenyan middle- and long-distance runner.
32 Facts About Faith Kipyegon
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Faith Kipyegon is the only three-time Olympic champion in the 1500 metres race, having won a gold medal each at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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Faith Kipyegon won a gold medal in the 1,500 m at the 2017,2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships and in the 5,000 m at the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
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At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Faith Kipyegon became the first athlete ever to win three consecutive gold medals in the 1500 m women's race, where she set a new Olympic record.
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Faith Kipyegon is one of only eleven athletes to win world championship titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels of an athletic event.
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Faith Kipyegon was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2017.
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Faith Kipyegon was the eighth of nine children growing up on a farm in a village near Keringet, Nakuru County in the Kenyan Rift Valley.
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Faith Kipyegon was a soccer player until she was introduced to athletics at school aged 14.
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In 2010, at age 16, a barefooted Faith Kipyegon made her international debut at the World Cross Country Championships held in Bydgoszcz, Poland, competing against athletes up to three years her senior.
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Faith Kipyegon 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.
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Faith Kipyegon finished second behind Swedish runner Abeba Aregawi but beat Ethiopia's Genzebe Dibaba in third.
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Faith Kipyegon improved her own 2013 Kenyan record to 3:56.82 for the win, setting the meeting record.
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Faith Kipyegon clocked 4:08.92, Dibaba 4:10.27 and Jenny Simpson was third in 4:10.53.
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Faith Kipyegon followed her doctor's advice and trained until she was between four and five months pregnant.
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Faith Kipyegon gave birth to her first child, a daughter Alyn, in June 2018 by a caesarean section due to the wrong position of her baby.
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Faith Kipyegon returned to training in January 2019 after an almost 18-month break.
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Faith Kipyegon went on to take the silver medal at the World Championships in Doha, where she chopped more than two seconds from her 2016 Kenyan record in the final with a time of 3:54.22.
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In 2021, Faith Kipyegon greatly improved her 2019 Kenyan national record at the Diamond League meetings.
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Faith Kipyegon won nine out of her ten races of the season.
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Faith Kipyegon claimed victory in her signature event at the Eugene Diamond League, with a time of 3:52.59.
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Faith Kipyegon got her 2023 campaign off to a strong start on 4 February with a dominant victory at the Sirikwa Cross Country Classic on home soil in Eldoret.
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Faith Kipyegon hit 800 in 2:04.1, as a pacemaker was asked for, and passed the bell in 2:50.2.
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Faith Kipyegon was sensational over the final two laps, running her last 800 in 2:00.6, last 400 in 58.81, and last 200 in 29.2.
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Faith Kipyegon made it two world records in a week after breaking exactly seven days later, on 9 June, Letesenbet Gidey's 5000 metres world standard of 14:06.62 set in 2020.
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On 21 July 2023, at the Monaco Diamond League, Faith Kipyegon ran 4:07.64 in the mile, breaking Sifan Hassan's mile world record of 4:12.33 which had stood since 2019.
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At the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Faith Kipyegon achieved the 1500m and 5000m double, winning the former in 3:54.87 and the latter in 14:53.88.
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In June 2024, at the 2024 Kenyan Olympic Trials in Nairobi, Faith Kipyegon won both the 1500m and 5000m, in times of 3:53.99 and 14:46.28, respectively.
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On 7 July 2024, at the Meeting de Paris, Faith Kipyegon broke her own 1500m world record by seven hundredths of a second, running 3:49.04.
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At the Paris 2024 Olympics, after initially winning the silver medal in the women's 5,000 metres, Faith Kipyegon faced disqualification for obstruction of Ethiopian athlete Gudaf Tsegay.
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Faith Kipyegon ended her campaign at the Paris Olympics with gold in the 1500m, breaking her own Olympic record with a time of 3:51.29.
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Faith Kipyegon outsprinted silver and bronze medallists Jessica Hull and Georgia Bell to win by a margin of 1.27 seconds.
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On 14 September 2024, Faith Kipyegon won the 1500 metres at the 2024 Diamond League final in Brussels, Belgium, in a meeting record time of 3:54.75.