Kenyan women made a historic sweep of all six gold medals from track to road at the 20th World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
The women, led by Olympic Games 10,000m and 5,000m champion Beatrice Chebet, accomplished what no country has ever done in the history of the championships.
They won the women’s 800m, 1,500m, 3,000m steeplechase, 5,000m, 10,000m, and marathon titles.
For good measure, Kenya registered an identical 1-2 finish in the women’s 5,000m and women’s 1,500m.
Tokyo became the most successful World Athletics Championships outing for the Kenyan men’s or women’s team. The previous record was five gold medals won by men at the Beijing 2015 championships.
Chebet, 25, was a woman on a mission in Tokyo.
Medalist Beatrice Chebet.
After making history as the first Kenyan woman to win double gold at the Olympics during the 2024 Paris Games, Chebet, who already owned the 10,000m world record of 28:54.14, set her sights on three things this year -- break the 5,000m world record and claim a double at the world championships.
She broke the 5,000m world record with a time of 13:58.06 during the national trials for the world championships in Eugene on July 5.
Chebet, the reigning world cross country senior women’s champion, would then give Kenya their opening victory in the women’s 10,000m in a time of 30:37.61 on the opening day in Tokyo on September 13.
Only three other Kenyans had won the title, Sally Barsosio (1997), Linet Masai (2009), and Vivian Cheruiyot (2011, 2015).
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics marathon champion, Peres Jepchirchir, handed Kenya their sixth women’s world marathon title when she edged out Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa in a pulsating sprint finish. She clocked 2:24:43 compared to Tigst’s 2:24:45.
Catherine Ndereba (2003, 2007), Edna Kiplagat (2011, 2013), and Ruth Chepng’etich (2019) are the other Kenyan world marathon winners.
Three-time Olympic 1,500m champion Faith Kipyegon, who was also chasing history in Tokyo, captured it in style on September 16, winning her fourth world 1,500m title in 3:52.15, as compatriot Dorcus Ewoi (3:54.92) finished second.
Kipyegon is the only Kenyan 1,500m women’s gold winner (2017, 2022, 2023, 2025).
Silver medallist Kenya's Faith Kipyegon celebrates with her medal on the podium in Japan.
Photo credit: Reuters
Faith Cherotich was the youngest athlete to medal at the 2023 Budapest World Championships at just 18 years old.
The 2022 World Under-20 3,000m steeplechase champion, then ascended to the women’s senior steeplechase throne three years later, stunning fancied Olympic and world champion Winfred Yavi.
Cherotich, did it in style, winning in a championship record time of 8:51.59, as Yavi finished in second place in 8:56.46.
Gold medallist Kenya's Faith Cherotich celebrates on the podium in Japan.
Photo credit: Reuters
Chebet would replicate Vivian Cheruiyot’s double achievements at the 2011 Daegu World Athletics Championships, striking gold in 5,000m in 14:54.36. The defending champion, then, Kipyegon, was relegated to silver with a time of 14:55.07.
That double feat saw Chebet become the first woman in history to hold double Olympic and double world titles as well as world records in the two races, at the same time.
Only two other athletes had achieved that -- Jamaican Usain Bolt in 200m and 100m and Ethiopian Kenenisa in 10,000m and 5,000m.
Africa 800m silver medallist Lilian Odira stunned compatriot world champion Mary Moraa and Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson from Great Britain to win the 800m title.
Odira tactically waited at the back before taking down four rivals at the homestraight to break the long-standing 42-year-old championship record of Jarmila Kratochvilo of 1:54.68 set at the inaugural Helsinki World Athletics Championships in 1983.
Odira’s time of 1:54.62 was the seventh fastest in history,
Gold medallist Kenya's Lilian Odira celebrates with her national flag after winning the Women's 800m Final.
Photo credit: Reuters
Odira is now the second fastest woman in Kenya after the 2008 Beijing Olympic 800m champion Pamela Jelimo (1:54.01).
The women helped power Kenya to second place on the medal standings with seven gold, two silver, and two bronze.
The United States of America, for the fifth consecutive time, topped the medal standings with 16 gold, five silver, and five bronze.
Emmanuel Wanyonyi, just like at the Paris Olympics last year, saved the day for the Kenyan male folk with victory in his specialty, the 800m. It was Kenya’s eighth men’s 800m world title.
Watched by 67,750 fans who included legendary 800m world record holder, David Rudisha, and World Athletics president Seb Coe, once a record holder over the distance, Wanyonyi shattered the previous championship record of 1:42.34 held by American Donovan Brazier in Doha 2019.
The 2022 world under-20 1,500m champion, Reynold Cheruiyot, and 2024 world under-20 3,000m steeplechase champion Edmund Serem settled for bronze in their specialties.
Serem, 17, struck bronze in 8:34.56 as the world indoor 1,500m champion Geordie Beamish from New Zealand, blasted past defending champion Moroccan Soufiana El Bakkali to hand his country a maiden steeplechase title in 8:33.88
