In Tokyo
Jepchirchir, who skipped the 2022 World Athletics Championships held in Eugene, Oregon, through injury, believes the Kenyan athletes should stick together to counter the strong challenge expected in the women’s 42km race on the streets of Tokyo on Sunday morning, starting at 1.30 am (Kenyan time).
“We should stick together and fight as a team. It shall be different, being a championship race, but the basics remain the same. We are well prepared, and everybody in the team is in high spirits and is hoping for the best,” said Jepchirchir, who is the most senior member of Kenya's women’s marathon team.
In 2021, she survived extreme temperatures to win the women’s marathon in the delayed 2020 Olympic Games. The women’s marathon race of the 2020 Olympic Games was held in Sapporo, northern Japan, under sweltering heat. Although Sunday’s race will not be held in Sapporo, similar conditions have been forecast.
On Thursday, World Athletics adjusted the race schedule for marathon races to start 30 minutes earlier so as to spare athletes the effects of extreme heat.
Jepchirchir will have her compatriots, 2025 Rotterdam Marathon champion Jackline Cherono, and Magdalyne Masai, who finished fourth at Tokyo Marathon in May this year, for company. The 2018 London Marathon champion Vivian Cheruiyot is here with the team as a reserve athlete.
The three will be out to reclaim the title Ruth Chepn’getich won for Kenya at the 2019 World Athletics Championship in Doha.
Jepchirchir will also be chasing a personal milestone. If she wins today’s race, she will become the first Kenyan athlete to have clinched both Olympic and world titles.
Jepchirchir, Cherono and Masai must contend with strong challenges from the Ethiopian contingent of former marathon world record holder Tigst Assefa, 2024 Berlin Marathon champion Tigist Ketema, and Chicago Marathon silver medallist Sutume Asefa Kebede.
The other top contenders are Kenyan-born Israeli Lorna Salpeter, and Eunice Chumba of Bahrain, who also renounced her Kenyan citizenship.
