•Kipyegon is not your run-of-the-mill athlete.
•One athlete who has been laying low so far this season due to health issues – and who, at her best, can trouble Kipyegon – is Hassan.
Image: FILE
Kenyan track sensation, Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon, will leave nothing to chance as she bids for the women's 1500m race at Oregon22 in Eugene tonight.
Kipyegon lit up the stands to bag silver in a thrilling final at the 2019 World Championships staged at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha, Qatar.
Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands cruised to victory covering the last 1500m in an extraordinary 3:59.09. Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay wrapped up in third.
Kipyegon is determined to put the heartwrenching loss all behind her as she seeks to upstage her chief rivals in Oregon. She made her intentions clear in the semis, winning in 4:03.98 ahead of Ethiopia’s Hirut Meshesha to make a place in Tuesday's final.
Kipyegon is not your run-of-the-mill athlete. She boasts a rich cabinet of gold clinched at the 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
The remarkable feats earned her a record as the second woman in history to claim back-to-back Olympic 1500m titles.
At the World Athletics Championships, she took silver in 2015, and gold in 2017. In 2019, returning from her maternity leave in the previous year, Kipyegon secured silver.
In July 2021, she achieved the fourth-fastest time in history, setting her consecutive Kenyan record.
She won the junior races at the 2011 and 2013 World Cross Country Championships, before being crowned the 2014 Commonwealth Games champion, and 2017 and 2021 Diamond League winner.
Kipyegon was cited as one of the top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2017.
She is arguably the greatest female 1500m runner of all time. But if the 27-year-old can reclaim her world title in Oregon – and make it a fourth global outdoor championships gold – then the debate will be fully over.
Based on recent form, it will take something very special to stop her.
She has been close to unbeatable at her favoured distance, her sole loss coming at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Florence last year after a thrilling home-straight duel with Hassan.
But as good as she is on the circuit, Kipyegon always saves her best for championships, and in Tokyo last year, she retained her Olympic title in style in 3:53.11. She also clocked a blazing 3:51.07 in Monaco, the fourth fastest time in history.
Kipyegon has tasted defeat over 800m and 3,000m already this season, but when it comes to the women’s 1,500m final on Monday, July 18, it’s hard to envisage anyone getting the better of the Kenyan.
At the Diamond League meeting in Eugene in late May, Kipyegon prevailed with a racing style that has become her trademark – coasting to the shoulder of the leader on the final lap and exploding off the final turn to clock 3:52.59.
Kipyegon is not the only Kenyan in the final. African champion Winny Chebet also qualified by virtue of being one of the fastest finishers outside the automatic slots.
She timed a season’s best of 4:03.08 and benefited from Tsegay’s fast pace to secure a berth in the final. One athlete who has been laying low so far this season due to health issues – and who, at her best, can trouble Kipyegon – is Sifan Hassan.
The Dutch star ran her first race of the season on Friday 8 July, finish fourth in 5,000m in 15:13.41.
Her coach, Tim Rowberry, recently told Letsrun.com that she is trying to take things slowly so she doesn’t burn herself out next year while building up for ParisHe added that Hassan's fasting during Ramadan “interrupted training more than usual.”
Tsegay, the world indoor 1500m record-holder, will be hoping to win gold in the event for the second time in the event’s history following Genzebe Dibaba’s victory in 2015.
She was a dominant winner of the 1500m at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade earlier this year. She will be joined by a pair of strong compatriots in 21-year-olds Hirut Meshesa and Freweyni Hailu.
They followed her home in Belgrade as Ethiopia swept the medal rostrum, with Hailu second and Meshesha third.
The host nation will peg its hopes on the strong contingent of Sinclaire Johnson, Elle St Pierre and Cory McGee.
Johnson took victory at the US Championships with a blazing kick. St Pierre, the world indoor 3000m silver medallist, could also be a threat, particularly in a fast race.
Britain has Olympic silver medallist Laura Muir who boasts a personal best of 4:02.81 which she recorded in Birmingham in May.
Australia will have a strong trio in Jessica Hull, Georgia Griffith and Linden Hall. Hall was sixth in the Olympic final last year and has a season’s best of 4:00.58, while Griffith is just ahead of her on season’s bests via the 4:00.16 PB she ran in Rabat.
Uganda’s Winnie Nanyondo finished fourth in the world indoor final in Belgrade and with a season’s best of 4:00.25, she will have her eyes on a spot in the final – at the very least.