Kenya
2022

Eugene: Ten Medals, Two Golds

The World Championships were held in the United States for the first time in 2022, in Eugene, Oregon, from 15 to 24 July. Kenya finished fourth in the medal table with ten medals: two gold, five silver and three bronze.

• GoldFaith Kipyegon — 1500 m, her second world title, 1.56 s clear of Gudaf Tsegay3:52.96
• GoldEmmanuel Korir — 800 m, a year after his Olympic title in Tokyo1:43.71
• SilverHellen Obiri — 10,000 m, 0.08 s behind Letesenbet Gidey30:10.02
• SilverBeatrice Chebet — 5000 m, 0.46 s behind Gudaf Tsegay14:46.75
• SilverStanley Mburu — 10,000 m, 0.47 s behind Joshua Cheptegei27:27.90
• SilverJacob Krop — 5000 m, 0.74 s behind Jakob Ingebrigtsen13:09.98
• SilverJudith Korir — marathon, 9 s behind Gotytom Gebreslase's championship record2:18:20
• BronzeMargaret Kipkemboi — 10,000 m, 0.05 s behind Obiri30:10.07
• BronzeMary Moraa — 800 m, a personal best behind Athing Mu and Keely Hodgkinson1:56.71
• BronzeConseslus Kipruto — 3000 m steeplechase, behind Soufiane El Bakkali and Lamecha Girma8:27.92

Both golds came from the middle distances. Faith Kipyegon won the 1500 m in 3:52.96 for her second world title, five years after her first in London. Emmanuel Korir, the Olympic 800 m champion from Tokyo the summer before, ran only 1:49.05 in his heat, the 35th-fastest time of the round, then won the final in 1:43.71. Fourth in that final, in 1:44.54, was the teenager Emmanuel Wanyonyi. (Every edition of the championship since 1983 is in our history of the World Championships.)

The silvers are the story of Kenya's week. In the women's 10,000 m Hellen Obiri lost to Letesenbet Gidey by eight hundredths of a second, and Margaret Kipkemboi was five hundredths further back in bronze. Beatrice Chebet finished 0.46 seconds behind Gudaf Tsegay in the 5000 m. Stanley Mburu missed the men's 10,000 m title by 0.47 to Joshua Cheptegei, and Jacob Krop the 5000 m by 0.74 to Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Four track silvers, and 1.75 seconds between them and four more gold medals. Judith Korir's marathon silver was the widest margin: nine seconds behind Gotytom Gebreslase.

The sprint story of the week was about getting there at all. Ferdinand Omanyala, then the African 100 m record holder, was still waiting for a US visa when the championships opened. It was approved at the last moment, and he reached the stadium a few hours before his heat, ran 10.10 to qualify, and went out in the semi-finals in 10.14. Earlier in the year, at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade in March, Kenya had sent nine athletes and won two medals: silver for Noah Kibet in the 800 m in 1:46.35 and bronze for Abel Kipsang in the 1500 m.

Birmingham: Twenty Commonwealth Medals

Six days after Eugene closed, the Commonwealth Games athletics programme opened in Birmingham with the marathons. Kenya won twenty athletics medals there — six gold, five silver and nine bronze — and finished third in the athletics table behind Australia and England. Twenty of Kenya's 21 medals across all sports at those Games came from athletics.

• GoldFerdinand Omanyala — 100 m, Kenya's first gold of the Games10.02
• GoldAbraham Kibiwot — 3000 m steeplechase, 0.05 s ahead of Avinash Sable8:11.15
• GoldJackline Chepkoech — 3000 m steeplechase, a Games record9:15.68
• GoldMary Moraa — 800 m, ahead of Keely Hodgkinson1:57.07
• GoldWyclife Kinyamal — 800 m, ahead of Peter Bol1:47.52
• GoldBeatrice Chebet — 5000 m, ahead of Eilish McColgan14:38.21

Several results ran the other way round from Oregon. Moraa, bronze in Eugene behind Hodgkinson, beat her to the Commonwealth title. Kinyamal, eighth in the world final, won the men's 800 m. Omanyala, out in the semi-finals a fortnight earlier, won the 100 m in 10.02 into a headwind, and Chebet turned her 5000 m silver into gold.

The defeats came in the distance events Kenya has long counted as its own. Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda won the men's 10,000 m, with Daniel Ebenyo and Kibiwott Kandie second and third; Eilish McColgan of Scotland won the women's 10,000 m ahead of Irine Cheptai and Sheila Chepkirui; and Oliver Hoare of Australia took the 1500 m by nine hundredths of a second from Timothy Cheruiyot. Julius Yego, the 2015 world javelin champion, won bronze, and the men's 4×100 m relay won a bronze medal too.

The Roads: Ten of the Twelve Majors

Six World Marathon Majors were run in the calendar year 2022: Tokyo in March, postponed from 2021; Boston in April; then Berlin, London and Chicago on three Sundays in a row from 25 September to 9 October, with London still on its pandemic autumn date; and New York in November. Kenyan men won all six. Kenyan women won four.

The run of the year was in Berlin on 25 September. Eliud Kipchoge passed halfway in 59:51, on schedule for a finish under two hours, slowed over the second half and still finished in 2:01:09, thirty seconds inside the world record he had set on the same course in 2018. He had opened his year by winning Tokyo in 2:02:40, a course record. The full story of the course is in our Berlin Marathon page, and what he races in is in What Eliud Kipchoge Wears.

The other men's titles were spread across three runners. Evans Chebet won Boston in April in 2:06:51 and New York in November in 2:08:41. Amos Kipruto won London in 2:04:39, and a week later Benson Kipruto won Chicago in 2:04:24. Among the women, Brigid Kosgei won Tokyo in 2:16:02 and Sharon Lokedi won New York in 2:23:23 in her first marathon. The two races Kenya did not win both went to Ethiopia: Tigist Assefa ran 2:15:37 in Berlin, a course record by more than two minutes, and Yalemzerf Yehualaw won London.

Two of the women's titles now carry a note. Ruth Chepngetich, who won Chicago in 2:14:18, is serving a three-year ban imposed in October 2025 after a positive test for the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide; her results from 14 March 2025 were disqualified, and the 2022 win stands. Peres Jepchirchir, the Boston winner in 2:21:01, was provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit on 23 October 2026 after an out-of-competition sample, taken before her Sydney Marathon win that August, returned a finding for EPO. Her case is open, and a provisional suspension is not a ruling.

What 2022 Became

Kipchoge's 2:01:09 lasted just over a year. Kelvin Kiptum ran 2:00:35 in Chicago on 8 October 2023 and died in a road accident in February 2024, aged 24. On 26 April 2026 in London, Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30, the first ratified marathon under two hours. Kipchoge, twice Olympic champion, is still racing in 2026, on a world tour of marathons that took him to Cape Town in May and to Porto Alegre in July, where he finished twelfth in 2:18:42.

The Eugene medallists did not stay where 2022 left them. Moraa won the world 800 m title in Budapest a year later, in 1:56.03. Chebet won the 5000 m and 10,000 m at the Paris Olympics and holds both world records, 13:58.06 and 28:54.14. Kipyegon broke the 1500 m world record in 2023 and has lowered it since, to 3:48.68 in 2025; what she races in has its own page. Obiri ran her first marathon in New York in November 2022 and has since won Boston twice and New York twice. And Wanyonyi, fourth in the Eugene 800 m, became Olympic champion in Paris and world champion in Tokyo in 2025. Those seasons are in our Kenya 2024 page.

The same year brought Kenyan athletics close to a sanction. With 55 Kenyans on the Athletics Integrity Unit's list of ineligible athletes and eight more provisionally suspended, the federation faced the threat of a ban; at the end of November 2022, the World Athletics Council in Rome accepted instead a government pledge of $25 million over five years for anti-doping staff, testing, investigations and education. Cases have kept coming since, and the Jepchirchir suspension of October 2026 is the most recent of them.

The Nike Kenya Kit of 2022

Our piece from the 2022 issue is a pair of Storm-FIT team trousers, Nike's weather-protection range, which the listing records as worn by the Kenyan international team over the 2021 and 2022 seasons. They are red, with a black panel across the front of the elasticated waist, two flapped cargo pockets on the thighs, a zipped side pocket, long black zips at the ankles and a single white swoosh on the right cargo pocket. The label gives 100% polyester and Made in Vietnam. There is no national wordmark on the outside: the team identity is in the red.

From this season · in the archiveNike Kenya International Team Pro Elite 2022 Storm Fit PantsRed Nike Storm-FIT team trousers from the Kenyan international team issue of the 2021 and 2022 seasons: black panel at the waist, two cargo pockets, a white swoosh and black zips at the ankles.120,00 €View piece →

The kit before and after this one is in our Kenya 2019 page and Kenya 2024, and the longer national story is in our history of athletics in Kenya.