Faith Kipyegon facts for kids
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Kipyegon at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics in London
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| Full name | Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname(s) | The Smiling Destroyer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 10 January 1994 Bomet, Rift Valley Province, Kenya |
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| Height | 1.57 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 44 kg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Country | Kenya | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Athletics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Event(s) | 1500 metres | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coached by | Patrick Sang (2017–) Bram Som (2015–2017) |
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| Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| World finals |
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| Olympic finals |
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| Highest world ranking | 1st (1500 m, 2023) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal best(s) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Silver
Gold
Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon (born January 10, 1994) is an amazing runner from Kenya. She is known for her incredible speed in middle and long-distance races. Faith holds the world record for the 1500 metres and the mile race. She also used to hold the world record for the 5000 metres.
Faith Kipyegon is the only athlete to win three Olympic gold medals in the 1500 metres. She won these gold medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and the 2024 Paris Olympics. She also won gold medals in the 1500 metres at the World Championships in 2017, 2022, and 2023. In 2023, she also won a gold medal in the 5000 metres at the World Championships.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Faith made history. She became the first athlete to win three gold medals in a row in the women's 1500 metres race. She also set a new Olympic record there. Before that, she won a silver medal in the women's 5000 metres. She was briefly disqualified but then got her silver medal back after an appeal.
When she was younger, Faith won gold medals at the World Cross Country Championships in 2011 and 2013. She also won the 1500 metres at the World Youth Championships in 2011 and the World Junior Championships in 2012. Faith is one of only eleven athletes to win world titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels in the same event.
In 2017, New African magazine named Kipyegon one of the Top 100 most influential Africans. In November 2024, the University of Eldoret gave her an honorary doctorate degree. This was to celebrate her achievements as a world and Olympic champion. People often call her "the smiling destroyer" because she smiles a lot but is a fierce competitor.
Contents
- Faith Kipyegon's Early Life
- Family Life and Training
- Faith's Junior Running Career
- Faith's Senior Running Career
- 2014: Commonwealth Champion
- 2015: World Championship Silver
- 2016: First Olympic Gold in Rio
- 2017: First Senior World Title
- 2018–2020: Motherhood and Comeback
- 2021: Second Olympic Gold in Tokyo
- 2022: Second Senior World Title
- 2023: World Records in 1500m, Mile, and 5000m
- 2024: More Records and Olympic Medals
- 2025: Breaking Barriers
- Achievements and Records
- Awards and Honours
- See also
Faith Kipyegon's Early Life
Faith Kipyegon grew up on a farm in a village near Keringet, Nakuru County in the Kenyan Rift Valley. She was the eighth of nine children in her family. Her family belongs to the Kalenjin tribe. Her older sister, Beatrice Mutai, is also a runner who specializes in 10 km and half marathon races.
Faith's father, Samuel Kipyegon Koech, used to run 400 metres and 800 metres when he was young. Her mother, Linah Koech, also had some connection to athletics. Faith loved playing football until she was 14. That's when she discovered athletics during a P.E. class at school. She ran a one-kilometer race and won it easily by 20 metres! She went to Winners Girls High School in Keringet.
Family Life and Training
Faith Kipyegon is married to Timothy Kitum, who won a bronze medal in the 800 metres at the 2012 Olympics. They have a daughter named Alyn, who was born in June 2018.
Faith trains in Kaptagat and Kapsabet. Since late 2017, her coach has been Patrick Sang. Patrick Sang is a famous former athlete who won three silver medals in the 3000 metres steeplechase. He also coaches Eliud Kipchoge, who holds the world record in the marathon. Before 2017, Faith was coached by Piet de Peuter, a former Dutch athlete.
Faith's Junior Running Career
In 2010, when Faith was just 16, she ran in her first international race. It was the World Cross Country Championships in Poland. She ran barefoot and finished fourth in the junior women's race. She was the youngest runner in the top 21 and helped her team win a gold medal. Later that year, she showed her talent on the track by finishing third in the 1500 metres at the Kenyan trials for the World Junior Championship.
In 2011, Faith ran barefoot again and won the individual gold medal at the World Cross Country Championships in Spain. Her team also won a silver medal. A few months later, she won the 1500 metres at the World Youth Championships in France. She set a new championship record with a time of 4:09.48.
Faith started 2012 very strongly. In May, she set a new Kenyan junior record in the 1500 metres with a time of 4:03.82 at a Diamond League meeting in Shanghai. In June, she won the Kenyan Junior Athletics Championships. She also finished third at the Kenyan Olympic Trials, which earned her a spot on the national team for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
At the World Junior Championships in July, she won gold in the 1500 metres again. She set another championship record with a time of 4:04.96. At the London Olympics in August, she finished ninth in her heat and did not move on to the next round.
In 2013, Faith defended her junior title at the World Cross Country Championships in Poland. In May, at a Diamond League meeting in Doha, Qatar, she ran the 1500 metres in under 4 minutes for the first time. Her time of 3:56.98 was a new African U20 and Kenyan senior record. She finished second in that race. In August, at the Moscow World Championships, she came fifth in the final.
Faith's Senior Running Career
2014: Commonwealth Champion
In March 2014, Faith won the senior women's race at the African Cross Country Championships in Uganda. She beat the second-place runner by more than eight seconds. In May, she was part of the Kenyan team that won a gold medal in the 4 × 1500 metres relay at the IAAF World Relays in the Bahamas. Her team set a new world record of 16:33.58.
In July of that year, Faith won her first major senior 1500 metres race. She became the champion at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in Scotland with a time of 4:08.94.
2015: World Championship Silver
On August 25, 2015, Faith won a silver medal in the 1500 metres at the World Championships in Beijing. She finished second behind Genzebe Dibaba.
In September, she won her first Diamond League race, the mile run in Brussels. She set a new African record of 4:16.71.
2016: First Olympic Gold in Rio
Faith's journey to the Olympics started strong in May 2016. She ran the 1500 metres at the Shanghai Diamond League and improved her own Kenyan record to 3:56.82. Two weeks later, she broke her national record again in Oregon, running 3:56.41. She also won the mile event at the Oslo Diamond League in June.
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At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Faith, then 22, became the 1500 metres champion. She outran Genzebe Dibaba in the last 200 metres of the race. Faith finished with a time of 4:08.92.
2017: First Senior World Title
In 2017, Faith won her first Diamond League 1500 metres Trophy. She won three races in Shanghai, Eugene, and Brussels.
Her biggest success that year was winning first place at the London World Championships in August. She became the first Kenyan woman to win the 1500 metres world title. She was also only the third woman ever to win both the Olympic and World Championships in this event. Faith ran 4:02.59. She later said that winning in London was "sweeter" than her Olympic win because she had to fight harder against many strong competitors. After this, she decided to start a family.
2018–2020: Motherhood and Comeback
Faith trained until she was about four or five months pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter, Alyn, in June 2018. She took a break from running for almost 18 months. Faith returned to training in January 2019. In June 2019, just 12 months after giving birth, she made a great comeback. She won her first race back, the 1500 metres, at the Eugene Diamond League.
Faith then won a silver medal at the World Championships in Doha. She ran even faster than her previous Kenyan record, finishing in 3:54.22. Sifan Hassan won that race.
In 2020, Faith competed in several Diamond League and Continental Tour meetings and won all six of her races. In August, she ran the second-fastest time ever in the 1000 metres at a meet in Monaco. Her time of 2:29.15 was an African and Diamond League record, just a tiny bit slower than the world record set in 1996.
2021: Second Olympic Gold in Tokyo
In 2021, Faith continued to improve her Kenyan national record at Diamond League meetings. In June, she ran 3:53.91 in Florence. In July, at the Monaco Herculis meet, she ran an even faster time of 3:51.07. This was the fourth-fastest time in history for a woman at that point.
In the women's 1500 metres final at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in August, Faith passed Sifan Hassan in the last 200 metres. She won her second Olympic gold medal in a row for the event. Her time of 3:53.11 broke the Olympic record that had stood for 33 years. She became only the second woman to win back-to-back Olympic 1500 metres titles.
In September, she beat Hassan again at the Zürich Diamond League final to win her second 1500 metres Diamond Trophy. Faith won nine out of her ten races that season.
2022: Second Senior World Title
In May 2022, Faith started her season by finishing second in the 3000 metres at the Doha Diamond League. She then won her main event, the 1500 metres, at the Eugene Diamond League with a time of 3:52.59.
At the World Championships in Eugene in July, Faith won the 1500 metres gold medal. Her time was 3:52.96. This made her the first female athlete to win four world titles in this distance.
In August, at the Monaco Diamond League, Faith ran 3:50.37, which was very close to the world record. It was her new Kenyan record and the second-fastest performance in history at the time. She ended her successful season with another win at the Zürich Diamond League final, earning her third 1500 metres Diamond League title. Faith won all six of her 1500 metres races that season.
In November, she mentioned in an interview that she would like to run marathons in the future.
2023: World Records in 1500m, Mile, and 5000m
Faith started 2023 with a big win at the Sirikwa Cross Country Classic in Kenya in February.
On June 2, she achieved something amazing: she set a new world record in the 1500 metres with a time of 3:49.11. She became the first woman ever to run the 1500 metres in under 3 minutes and 50 seconds. She broke the old record by almost a full second.
Faith then broke another world record just seven days later, on June 9! She broke the 5000 metres world record, which was 14:06.62. This was a big surprise because it was only her third time ever running this distance. At the Paris Diamond League, she ran 14:05.20, beating the old record by 1.42 seconds. She became only the second woman in history to hold both the 1500 metres and 5000 metres world records at the same time.
Her 5000 metres world record was later broken by Gudaf Tsegay in September 2023.
On July 21, 2023, at the Monaco Diamond League, Faith ran the mile in 4:07.64. This broke Sifan Hassan's mile world record, which had stood since 2019.
At the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Faith achieved a "double" win. She won both the 1500 metres (in 3:54.87) and the 5000 metres (in 14:53.88).
2024: More Records and Olympic Medals
In June 2024, at the Kenyan Olympic Trials in Nairobi, Faith won both the 1500 metres and 5000 metres races.
On July 7, 2024, at the Meeting de Paris, Faith broke her own 1500 metres world record again! She ran 3:49.04, becoming the first woman to run under 3 minutes and 49 seconds.
At the Paris 2024 Olympics, Faith first won a silver medal in the women's 5,000 metres. She was briefly disqualified but got her silver medal back after a successful appeal. She finished her Paris Olympics journey by winning gold in the 1500 metres. She broke her own Olympic record with a time of 3:51.29, winning by a clear margin.
On September 14, 2024, Faith won the 1500 metres at the 2024 Diamond League final in Brussels, Belgium. She set a new meeting record of 3:54.75.
On September 26, 2024, she won the first-ever Athlos event, an all-woman track and field meeting in New York City.
2025: Breaking Barriers
On April 26, 2025, Faith set a meeting record in the 1000 metres at the Xiamen Diamond League, running 2:29.21. This was very close to the world record.
On June 26, 2025, Faith tried to become the first woman to run a mile in under four minutes in a special event. She ran 4:06.91, which was very fast but just short of the four-minute goal. This event was not officially recognized as a world record because she had help from special shoes and pacers.
On July 5, 2025, at the Prefontaine Classic, Faith improved her 1500 metres world record again! She ran 3:48.68, becoming the first woman to break the 3 minutes and 49 seconds barrier.
Achievements and Records
Faith Kipyegon has achieved many amazing things in her running career.
Personal Best Times
| Event | Time (minutes:seconds) | Where she ran it | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 800 metres | 1:57.68 | Doha, Qatar | September 25, 2020 | |
| 1000 metres | 2:29.15 | Monaco | August 14, 2020 | African Record, 2nd fastest of all time |
| 1500 metres | 3:48.68 | Eugene, United States | July 5, 2025 | World Record |
| Mile | 4:07.64 | Monaco | July 21, 2023 | World Record |
| 4:06.91 | Paris, France | June 26, 2025 | Not an official record | |
| 3000 metres | 8:23.55 | Doha, Qatar | May 9, 2014 | |
| 5000 metres | 14:05.20 | Paris, France | June 9, 2023 | Was the World Record until September 17, 2023 |
| 4 × 1500 m relay | 16:33.58 | Nassau, Bahamas | May 24, 2014 | African Record |
International Competitions
| Year | Competition | Venue | Position | Event | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | World Cross Country Championships | Bydgoszcz, Poland | 4th | Junior Cross Country 5.833 km | 19:02 | |
| 1st | Junior team | 10 pts | ||||
| 2011 | World Cross Country Championships | Punta Umbria, Spain | 1st | Junior Cross Country 6 km | 18:53 | |
| 2nd | Junior team | 19 pts | ||||
| World Youth Championships | Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France | 1st | 1500 m | 4:09.48 | Championship Record | |
| 2012 | African Cross Country Championships | Cape Town, South Africa | 1st | Junior Cross Country 6 km | 19:32 | |
| World Junior Championships | Barcelona, Spain | 1st | 1500 m | 4:04.96 | Championship Record | |
| Olympic Games | London, United Kingdom | 16th (heat) | 1500 m | 4:08.78 | ||
| 2013 | World Cross Country Championships | Bydgoszcz, Poland | 1st | Junior Cross Country 6 km | 17:51 | |
| 1st | Junior team | 14 pts | ||||
| World Championships | Moscow, Russia | 5th | 1500 m | 4:05.08 | ||
| 2014 | African Cross Country Championships | Kampala, Uganda | 1st | Senior Cross Country 8 km | 25:33.02 | |
| 1st | Senior team | 10 pts | ||||
| World Relays | Nassau, Bahamas | 1st | 4 × 1500 m relay | 16:33.58 | World Record | |
| Commonwealth Games | Glasgow, United Kingdom | 1st | 1500 m | 4:08.94 | ||
| African Championships | Marrakesh, Morocco | 5th | 1500 m | 4:13.46 | ||
| 2015 | World Championships | Beijing, China | 2nd | 1500 m | 4:08.96 | |
| 2016 | Olympic Games | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | 1st | 1500 m | 4:08.92 | |
| 2017 | World Cross Country Championships | Kampala, Uganda | 6th | Senior Cross Country 9.858 km | 32:49 | |
| 1st | Senior team | 10 pts | ||||
| World Championships | London, United Kingdom | 1st | 1500 m | 4:02.59 | ||
| 2019 | World Championships | Doha, Qatar | 2nd | 1500 m | 3:54.22 | Kenyan Record |
| 2021 | Olympic Games | Tokyo, Japan | 1st | 1500 m | 3:53.11 | Olympic Record |
| 2022 | World Championships | Eugene, United States | 1st | 1500 m | 3:52.96 | |
| 2023 | World Championships | Budapest, Hungary | 1st | 1500 m | 3:54.87 | |
| 1st | 5000 m | 14:53.88 | ||||
| 2024 | Olympic Games | Paris, France | 1st | 1500 m | 3:51.29 | Olympic Record |
| 2nd | 5000 m | 14:29.60 |
Circuit Wins and Titles
- Diamond League 1500 metres champion (3 times):
2017, 2021, 2022 - Faith has won many Diamond League races:
- 2015: 1 win (Mile race in Brussels, African Record)
- 2016: 3 wins (1500m in Shanghai and Eugene, Kenyan Records; Mile in Oslo)
- 2017: 3 wins (1500m in Shanghai, Eugene, Brussels)
- 2019: 1 win (1500m in Palo Alto)
- 2020: 3 wins (1000m in Monaco, African Record; 1000m in Brussels; 800m in Doha)
- 2021: 4 wins (800m in Doha; 1500m in Monaco, Kenyan Record; 1500m in Eugene; 1500m in Zürich)
- 2022: 3 wins (1500m in Eugene; 1500m in Monaco, Kenyan Record; 1500m in Zürich)
- 2023: 3 wins (1500m in Doha; 1500m in Florence, World Record; 5000m in Paris, World Record)
- 2024: 1 win (1500m at Paris Olympics, Olympic Record)
- She also won the Sirikwa Cross Country Classic in 2022–23.
National Titles
- Kenyan Cross Country Championships
- Senior women's race: 2014, 2015
Awards and Honours
- Kenyan Sports Personality of the Year – Sportswoman of the Year: 2021, 2022
- World Athletics – World Athlete of the Year: 2023
- Nominee for Laureus World Sports Award for Sportswoman of the Year: 2024
- Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement: 2024 – given by President William Ruto
See also
In Spanish: Faith Kipyegon para niños
