Running News Daily

I will inspire many girls after Paris Olympics – Kipyegon

Two-time Olympic 1500m gold medalist Faith Kipyegon is motivated and ready to write more history and break records in the Paris Olympic Games this year.

The 29-year-old who already has four world titles in 1500m and 5000m to her name, is also keen to enjoy the quadrennial championship and motivate the young girls from the continent and the world at large.

“I’m looking forward to Paris 2024, to step on that track and see what will happen,” Kipyegon said.

“That’s what we are looking for – to get to the Olympics, get to the track and just enjoy it and see what will come out.”

In 2023, as well as winning 1500m and 5000m gold medals at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Kipyegon broke three world records, in the 1500m, mile and 5000m.

It’s performances like these that she knows will further inspire the next generation, which is another of her aims in 2024.

“Outside of track, and after the Olympics, I think I will motivate and inspire many, especially young girls in my country and Africa and all over the world,” she says. “That is my motivation.

“I want to see them express their talent, follow my footsteps, and I want them to see good role models.”

Kipyegon has never been short of motivation.

Her international career began back at the World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz in 2010.

Running barefoot in the freezing conditions, the then 16-year-old finished fourth in the U20 race.

The following year she got gold in Punta Umbria, before winning that year’s world U18 1500m title in Lille – her first global gold medal in the discipline.

World U20 gold followed in Barcelona in 2012, before senior world titles in London in 2017 and Oregon in 2022, plus Olympic gold medals in Rio and Tokyo.