Keeping The Faith

STUART WEIR CHARTS THE RISE OF WORLD AND OLYMPIC 1500m QUEEN FAITH KIPYEGON

- Stuart Weir

THE WOMEN’S 1500m was arguably the race of London 2017 and the outcome proved to be the same as it had been in the 2016 Olympic final – with a win for Faith Kipyegon. Then, as if being world and Olympic champion was not enough, the Kenyan confirmed her superiority with a win in the Diamond League final in Brussels.

Like many Kenyans she began running at a young age. “I started when I was in primary school,” she says. “When I was in fourth year I started doing competitions in Kenya – local and county competitions at first.”

Aged just 16 she came fifth in the junior race at the 2010 World Cross Country Championships, as well as being in the Kenyan team that took the team prize. In 2011 she won the World Cross junior title and later that year the 1500m at the IAAF World Youth Championship.

In 2012 she won the 1500m at the IAAF World Junior Championships in 4:04.96 – a remarkable time for an 18-year-old and qualified for the London Olympics. She finished sixth in her heat, finishing 25th overall with 24 advancing to the semifinals. Ironically, three of the six in her heat who beat her have now had their records deleted as drugs cheats. She was not too disappointed with her performance, saying: “I was very, very young, still a junior. But even though I was a junior, I entered the Kenyan trials and I made the team for London.”

She came fifth in the 2013 World Championships in Moscow and said of the experience: “I was still a junior so I was running ‘carefree’. When you are a junior, you just go to the race and run with freedom – I was still running free then.”