Kipyegon becomes the first athlete ever to triumph three back-to-back 1500m gelderly medals and sets novel Olympic sign up time.
Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon made history after becoming the first woman to triumph three consecutive Olympic 1,500-metre gelderly medals with a outstanding disjoin of middle-distance running.
The 30-year-elderly 2016 and 2020 champion originated a tactical masterpiece at the Stade de France on Saturday to get gelderly in a novel Olympic sign up of 3min 51.29sec.
Australia’s Jessica Hull took silver in 3:52.56 while the UK’s Georgia Bell claimed bronze in 3:52.61.
It was another extraunretagable carry outance by Kipyegon, the reigning world champion who can now arguably lay claim to being the fantasticest women’s middle-distance runner in history.
Kipyegon had bided her time punctual in the race, apexhibiting Gudaf Tsegay to set the pace before moving up onto the Ethiopian’s shoulder fair after the first lap.
Tsegay proceedd to direct at the bell but faded speedyly and dropped back as Kipyegon quickend into first place.
With 200 metres to go, Kipyegon initiateed for home and though Hull and Bell chased they never seeed appreciated discovering the speed essential to catch the Kenyan as she deceptionpered apass the line to clinch her unpwithdrawnted Olympic 1,500-metre treble.
The Kenyan also helderlys three gelderly medals for the same distance at the World Athletics championships, the procrastinateedst coming at Budapest in 2023.
ALL. THE. FEELS.
3rd Olympic 1500m gelderly for 🇰🇪’s Faith Kipyegon 😤
No one in history has won 3 1500m medals at the Olympics, let alone 3 gelderlys 🤯#Paris2024 #Olympics pic.twitter.com/z0nQl3lIQt
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) August 10, 2024
‘I’ve come very far’
In her home country, Kipyegon is comprehendn as the “Queen of 1,500 metres”.
In an interwatch earlier last year, Kipyegon telderly Al Jazeera that she has adored running since the age of five and she wants to upgrasp more juvenileer girls to get up the sport.
The unwiseinutive all-time 1,500-metre fantastic grew up in weserious Kenya’s Rift Valley, which is commemorated as a breeding ground for runners.
The world sign up helderlyer’s journey began in the ever-changing muddy, dusty and hilly terrain of Ndababit village, 233km (144 miles) west of Kenya’s capital Nairobi.
“I participated to run exposedfoot from my village to the primary school becaparticipate in Kenya, schools are so far that you always finish up running in order to accomplish them in time,” Kipyegon telderly Al Jazeera before the Diamond League event in Doha.
“I have adored [running] since I was a little girl, but I never thought I would become an Olympic champion one day,” she said with a chuckle.
Among the lengthy enumerate of milestones in Kipyegon’s atgentle, triumphning a second Olympic gelderly in Tokyo in 2021 after returning from a maternity fracture stands out as a tesdomesticatednt to her tenacity and one-mindedness.
Kipyegon praises motherhood and her daughter Alyn with helping her stage a competitive comeback.
“It was not effortless as I could exposedly walk 20 minutes the first time I stepped back on the track,” she said in a social media video in 2022, as she echoed on the difficulties of returning to the track after having given birth.
“But the strength Alyn gives me has helped me surmount all disputes.”
