From underdog to global champion

After a low-key marathon outing in late 2013, Jepchirchir’s first big breakthrough came at the 2014 Kenyan Cross Country Championships in Nairobi where she finished second, just two seconds behind winner Faith Kipyegon and ahead of may well-known athletes. 

Eventhough there was no opportunity to compete at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, she won three road races in France later that year, all by comfortable margins and clocked a 1:09:12 half-marathon debut to win in Montbeliard.

She also won the Marseille-Cassis 20km race by more than a minute and was a convincing winner over 10km in Houilles.

In 2015, she improved her best to 30:55 over 10km – the second-fastest time in the world that year,  and 1:07:17 for the half marathon.

She also maintained her record of finishing in the top two in all of her races.

That streak came to an end in January 2016 with her fourth-place finish in Ras Al-Khaimah, but she was at least rewarded with a Personl Best (PB) of 1:06:39.

In fact, before this weekend, the biggest race Jepchirchir had contested was one in which she did not finish. She was one of the pace makers at the 2015 London Marathon and led the field to 25km before Ethiopia’s Tigist Tufa went on to win.