At the 2017 World Championships in London, Kipyegon (L in red) won her first senior world title, beating, 2–5, Jenny Simpson, Caster Semenya, Laura Muir and Sifan Hassan. (Photo by Erik van Leeuwen)
Kenyan Faith Kipyegon has the chance to equal Hicham El Guerrouj’s record gold-medal haul when she lines up in the women’s 1500m race at the World Athletics championships in Tokyo.
Despite having contested only three official races this year, Faith Kipyegon starts as the big gold-medal favourite.
Her compatriot Nelly Chepchirchir, buoyed by Diamond League Final win will be among her rivals in the race that includes Diribe Welteji, Jessica Hull and Nikki Hiltz.
Kipyegon only opened her campaign in late April at the Diamond League meeting in Xiamen, just missing the world 1000m record with 2:29.21 – the third-fastest time in history behind her own PB and the world record.
Two months later, she produced the fastest mile performance in history (4:06.42) in an unofficial exhibition event. Shortly after that she competed at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene and improved her own world 1500m record, which now stands at 3:48.68.
She also attempted the world 3000m record at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia in August, but missed it by less than a second. Nevertheless, she was satisfied with the result as she became the only woman to come within five seconds of the long-standing world record of 8:06.11 set by Wang Junxia in 1993.
The 31-year-old has won three Olympic and three world 1500m titles – more than any other woman in the history of the event – and remains unbeaten over the distance for four years. If she continues this streak at the World Championships, she will equal the gold medal haul achieved by Hicham El Guerrouj – the only runner with four world 1500m titles.
Her closest pursuer Gudaf Tsegay, who ran 3:50.62 this year, is entered in the 5000m and 10,000m at. Kipyegon’s compatriot Beatrice Chebet – fifth on this season’s 1500m top list – made the same decision as Tsegay. However, if everything goes to plan, the trio will reunite in the final of the 5000m – an event in which Kipyegon is also the defending champion.
In Tsegay’s absence, Ethiopia’s leading contender for a 1500m medal is Welteji, the world silver medallist two years ago. When Kipyegon set her world record in Eugene, the 22-year-old finished second in a personal best of 3:51.44, which places her eighth on the all-time list.
Three spots ahead of her on that world all-time list stands Australia’s Olympic silver medallist Jessica Hull, who narrowly lost this year’s Diamond League Final in Zurich when Kenya’s Nelly Chepchirchir beat her in a photo finish. Chepchirchir, who also won at the Diamond League meetings in Doha, Rabat, Paris and Monaco, is also among the contenders in Tokyo.
In contrast to the women’s race there will be no clear favourite in the men’s 1500m.
This season has been characterised by exceptionally fast racing – a record 14 men have run under 3:30 this year – and a multiplicity of winners of the big races as six different men have won Diamond League events over 1500m or a mile.
In the absence of the dominant figure in the 1500m for the last four years – Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who sustained an achilles injury early in the year and has missed almost the entire outdoor season – the event has become unpredictable, and the race for the world title shapes as the most open in years.
The closest thing to a frontrunner is probably the 20-year-old Dutch athlete Niels Laros, who won the Diamond League Final in Zurich, and also had wins in Brussels and Eugene, which boasted one of the deepest fields of the year.
What Laros lacks in experience, he makes up for with a blistering finishing kick which is likely to stand him in good stead in a championship final. He finished sixth at the Paris Olympics but has gone to a new level this year, defeating all the main contenders and lowering the Dutch record to 3:29.20.
His back-to-back wins in Brussels and Zurich means he will go into Tokyo with momentum. If he was to win, he would be the youngest champion in the history of the event.
Others dreaming of the podium will include French veteran Azeddine Habz, who has the top time of the year (3:27.49) set when gaining a narrow victory over 18-year-old Kenyan prodigy Phanuel Koech (3:27.72) and Briton George Mills (3:28.36) in the extraordinarily fast race at the Paris Diamond League meeting.
Others who have broken 3:30 this year include defending world champion and Olympic silver medallist Josh Kerr (3:29.37), world indoor champion Ingebrigtsen (3:29.63 indoors in February), 2019 world champion Timothy Cheruiyot (3:29.75) and Australian teenager Cameron Myers (3:29.80), so none of them can be discounted.
Olympic champion Cole Hocker has yet to find his best form this year, squeezing into the US team for Tokyo by virtue of a third place at his national championships in August. Olympic bronze medallist Yared Nuguse, currently ranked No.1 in the world, will not compete in Tokyo after he was caught out in that hotly-contested US final.
Jonah Koech was the winner of that race, and also of the 1500m in Rabat early in the season. His Kenyan namesake Phanuel Koech won in London in July, defeating Kerr, while Portugal’s Isaac Nader won the Dream Mile in Oslo in June and has featured highly in many of the big races this year. All of these athletes have podium potential in Tokyo.
