Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon (born 10 January 1994) is a Kenyan middle and long-distance runner. Kipyegon is the world record holder for the 1500 metres and the mile, and she is the former world record holder for the 5000 metres. Kipyegon is the only three-time Olympic champion in the 1500 metres, having won a gold medal each at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro, 2020 Tokyo, and the 2024 Paris Olympics. She also won a gold medal in the 1500 metres at the 2017, 2022, 2023 and 2025 World Championships and in the 5000 metres at the 2023 World Championships.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Kipyegon became the first athlete ever to win three consecutive gold medals in the 1500 m women's race, where she also set a new Olympic record. In addition to the 1500 m, she had previously earned a silver medal in the women's 5000 m, after successfully appealing a disqualification.
As a junior, Kipyegon won gold medals at the 2011 and 2013 World Cross Country Championships and in the 1500 m at the 2011 World Youth Championships and the 2012 World Junior Championships. Kipyegon is one of only eleven athletes to win world championship titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels of an athletic event.
Kipyegon was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2017. On 21 November 2024, the University of Eldoret conferred its first honorary degree on Kipyegon in recognition of her accomplishments and for her "humility and grace."
Early life and background Kipyegon was the eighth of nine children growing up on a farm in a village near Keringet, Nakuru County in the Kenyan Rift Valley. She comes from the Kalenjin tribe. Her elder sister and former training partner Beatrice Mutai is a 10 km and half marathon specialist. Her father Samuel Kipyegon Koech was a 400 m and 800 m runner in his youth, while her mother Linah Koech also had contact with athletics. Faith was a football player until she was introduced to athletics at school aged 14. She lined up for a one-kilometre run in P.E. class and won that race by 20 metres. She attended Winners Girls High School in Keringet.
Personal life and coach Kipyegon is married to middle-distance runner Timothy Kitum, the 2012 Olympic 800 m bronze medallist. They have a daughter, Alyn, born in June 2018.
She trains in Kaptagat (and Kapsabet) and has been coached since the end of 2017 by Patrick Sang, triple global 3000 m steeplechase silver medallist, who is also coaching marathon world record-holder Eliud Kipchoge. Up until 2017, Kipyegon was coached by former Dutch athlete Piet de Peuter.
Junior career In 2010, at age 16, a barefooted Kipyegon made her international debut at the World Cross Country Championships held in Bydgoszcz, Poland, competing against athletes up to three years her senior. She placed fourth in the women's junior race as the youngest finisher in the top 21, and won the gold medal with her under-20 team (it was a Kenyan 1–4 sweep). Later that year, she showed her track potential by finishing third in the 1500 metres at the Kenyan World Junior Championship Trials in Nairobi.
Running barefoot again, Kipyegon improved by two places and won the individual gold medal at the 2011 edition in Punta Umbria, Spain, adding a silver with her team. A few months later, she raced the 1500 m at the World Youth Championships in Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France, taking the women's crown, ahead of two Ethiopian runners with a time of 4:09.48, breaking the championship record in the process.
Her 2012 season started with a bang as, after the 800 metres race in April, she set a swift national junior 1500 m record of 4:03.82 at the Shanghai Diamond League meeting (5th) the following month. In June, the 18-year-old won the event at the Kenyan Junior Athletics Championships, and finished third at the Kenyan Olympic Trials to secure a spot on the national team for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. At the World Junior Championships held in July in Barcelona, she ran a championship record again to claim gold in her specialist event significantly ahead of the field with a time of 4:04.96; Serbian Amela Terzić and Ethiopian Senbere Teferi took second and third place respectively. She placed ninth in her heat at the London Olympics in August in a time of 4:08.78 (sixth after later doping disqualifications), failing to advance to the semi-finals.
At the beginning of the 2013 season, she defended her junior title at the World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz (PL). On 10 May, at the Diamond League meeting in Doha, Qatar, she broke for the first time the 4-minute barrier in the 1500 m, clocking an African U20 and Kenyan senior record of 3:56.98. Kipyegon finished second behind Swedish runner Abeba Aregawi but beat Ethiopia's Genzebe Dibaba in third. In August, at the Moscow World Championships, the 19-year-old came fifth in the final in a time of 4:05.08.
Senior career 2014: Commonwealth champion In March, she claimed victory in the senior women's race (8 km) at the African Cross Country Championships held in Kampala, Uganda, beating the silver medallist by more than eight seconds. In May, she was a member of the team which won the gold medal in the 4 × 1500 m relay at the first IAAF World Relays in Nassau, Bahamas, along with Mercy Cherono, Irene Jelagat and Hellen Obiri. The Kenyan team, ahead of the United States and Australia, set a new world record of 16:33.58. That same year in July, Kipyegon took her first senior 1500 m victory, becoming the Glasgow Commonwealth Games champion in Scotland with a time of 4:08.94. The 20-year-old finished fifth over the distance, however, at the African Championships staged in Marrakesh, Morocco in August, clocking 4:13.46.
2015: World championship silver medallist On 25 August, Kipyegon won a silver in the 1500 m event at the World Championships held in Beijing. After a tactical race, she finished second in a time of 4:08.96 behind only then fresh world record holder Genzebe Dibaba who clocked 4:08.09. Sifan Hassan representing the Netherlands was third in 4:09.34.
On 11 September, she secured her first Diamond League victory, winning the mile race in Brussels. It was a notable success, as she set a meeting and African record of 4:16.71, beating Hassan who ran 4:18.20 in the final stretch.
2016: First Olympic title in Rio Kipyegon's Olympic campaign kicked off to a strong start on 14 May, racing the 1500 m at the Shanghai Diamond League. She improved her own 2013 Kenyan record to 3:56.82 for the win, also setting the meeting record. Two weeks later, she repeated all these feats at the Eugene Diamond Race meet in Oregon, USA, lowering her national record to 3:56.41. She also notched up victory in the mile event at the Oslo Diamond League in June.
The then 22-year-old became the Olympic 1500 m champion in Rio de Janeiro, avenging her loss to Dibaba in the previous year's World Championships. She outsprinted Dibaba in the final 200 m in what was initially a very slow tactical race, with a third lap in 56.80 and last 800 m in a fast 800 m races pace of 1:57.2. Kipyegon clocked 4:08.92, Dibaba 4:10.27 and Jenny Simpson was third in 4:10.53.
2017: First senior world title Kipyegon earned her first Diamond League 1500 m Trophy, winning three races in Shanghai, Eugene and Brussels. It was the first season of the series to feature the new championship-style system in which overall event winners are determined only by the results of the final meet. Kipyegon outsprinted her rival Sifan Hassan at the Brussels Final in September, 3:57.04 to 3:57.22.
Her best success of that year was the first place at the London World Championships in August, becoming the first Kenyan female world 1500 m champion and only the third woman in history to win both the Olympic and World Championships finals over the distance. The 23-year-old ran 4:02.59 while a further three women also recorded times below 4:03, with Jenny Simpson in second and Caster Semenya in third. "I won the Olympics in 2016 but the victory at the World Championships in 2017 was sweeter because I fought the hardest. In 2016 Rio, I was only wary of Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia because I had a fantastic season. In London, Caster Semenya, Dibaba, Sifan Hassan, Laura Muir and Jennifer Simpson were all gold medal prospects." Kipyegon said.
At this point she decided to start a family.
2018–2020: Motherhood and comeback, world championship silver medallist Kipyegon followed her doctor's advice and trained until she was between four and five months pregnant. She gave birth to her first child, a daughter Alyn, in June 2018 by a caesarean section due to the wrong position of her baby. Kipyegon returned to training in January 2019 after an almost 18-month break. At the end of June six months later, 12 months after the childbirth, she made her racing comeback in style, winning her specialty in 3:59:04 at the Eugene Diamond League, the Prefontaine Classic, held that year in Palo Alto.
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. Sifan Hassan came first in 3:51.95 while third-placed Gudaf Tsegay set a personal best of 3:54.38.
In 2020, she competed at the Diamond League and Continental Tour meetings staying unbeaten in all her six races. In August, she ran the second-fastest time ever, an African and Diamond League record in the 1000 metres at the Herculis meet in Monaco, with her result of 2:29.15 just 0.17 s short of the world record set back in 1996 by Svetlana Masterkova.
2021: Second back-to-back Olympic title in Tokyo In 2021, Kipyegon greatly improved her 2019 Kenyan national record at the Diamond League meetings. On 10 June, she ran 3:53.91 at the Rome Golden Gala, staged in Florence, to finish second just behind Sifan Hassan who clocked 3:53.63. On 9 July at the Monaco Herculis, Kipyegon chopped nearly three seconds from that mark for a win, stopping the clock at a world-leading 3:51.07 – the fourth-fastest female performance in history at the time and just one second off Genzebe Dibaba's world record, which was also set in Monaco in 2015. She outsprinted Hassan in the home straight by about 2.5 s.
In the women's 1500 m final of the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics in August, Kipyegon overtook Hassan in the last 200 m to secure her second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event in a time of 3:53.11, breaking the Games record which had stood for 33 years. She became the second woman in history to win back-to-back Olympic 1500 m titles, while Hassan faded in the home stretch (3:55.86 for third)
In September, she beat Hassan again at the Zürich Weltklasse Diamond League final to take her second 1500 m Diamond Trophy. Kipyegon won nine out of her ten races of the season.
2022: Second senior world title In May, Kipyegon opened her season over 3000 m at the Doha Diamond League, finishing second behind Francine Niyonsaba in 8:38.05. She claimed victory in her signature event at the Eugene Diamond League, with a time of 3:52.59.
At the World Championships held also in Eugene in July, Kipyegon decisively won the 1500 m gold medal with a time of 3:52.96, which made her the first female athlete to win four global titles over the distance. Gudaf Tsegay placed second in 3:54.52 while Laura Muir earned bronze (3:55.28).