Emmanuel Wanyonyi and Beatrice Chebet made it a memorable night for Kenya at the world championships on Saturday as they produced outstanding performances to win the men’s 800 metres and women’s 5,000m respectively.
Just over a year ago the duo left Paris as Olympic champions, while Chebet won both the 5,000 and 10,000m golds.
On Saturday, in front of over 58,000 spectators at Japan’s National Stadium, she achieved the same feat, beating her idol Faith Kipyegon to become only the third woman to do the distance double at a world championships.
Wanyonyi’s blisteringly fast race was watched by retired Kenyan 800m legend David Rudisha, who sat beside another man who knows a thing or two about the two-lap race, two-time Olympic silver medallist and World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe.
Rudisha produced one of the all-time great Olympic performances when he broke the world record to win gold at the 2012 London Games.
There was never any question of that happening in Saturday’s final, Wanyonyi winning in a championship record time of 1min 41.86sec.
However, Rudisha has all but anointed the 21-year-old former cattle herder as the man most likely to set a new record.
“Maybe I will start to think about the world record,” Wonyonyi said.
“I also want to win gold in Los Angeles in 2028. That’s the biggest goal.
“I met David Rudisha yesterday. He told me just to take a rest and focus, and everything is possible.”
Chebet enjoys a close friendship with Kipyegon, who is six years her senior, but on the track she is not over-awed by one of the legends of athletics.
Indeed Chebet has every chance of being accorded similar status, given her increasingly impressive gold medals tally.
Kipyegon, despite her disappointment at failing to repeat her world 1,500m/5000m double from the 2023 Budapest championships, embraced Chebet warmly at the finish.
“Going home with two gold medals makes me really happy,” said Chebet.
“Me and Faith have been friends for a long time. We motivate each other and I am really pleased with our performances.”
