Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet, the Olympic 10,000m and 5000m champion is now also the 10,000m champion in Tokyo World Championships. On Saturday, in a thrilling run, she dropped the defending champion from Ethiopia Gudaf Tsegay with just 200m left to win with a timing of 30 minutes and 37.61 seconds.
And it all started with her grandmother’s question when she was in grade three. It was actually a neighbour who had spotted her talent and went to the grandmother. The neighbour suggested to the grandmother that the kid seems to have a talent to run and it would perhaps be wise to enrol in some athletics camp instead of just staying at home during the holidays.
After thinking over it for a few days, the grandmother, Chebet, once recalled to Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation, approached her with a question. ‘Would she be interested in running?’
Major Beatrice Chebet has made history again!!!
With the gold medal in the women’s 10,000m at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan, she becomes the first woman ever to simultaneously hold the Olympic 10,000m title, the 10,000m world record, and the World… pic.twitter.com/cD6gHdPssR
— MxM (@Mukurima) September 13, 2025
“I told my grandmother that I was more than ready to take up athletics fully as long as she supported me in camp,” Chebet told Daily Nation.
The granny had researched the area, identified a club where two sisters had trained to become successful runners – Sandra and Emily. “Sandra and Emily’s story was so good that my grandmother couldn’t resist the urge to let me pursue athletics,” Beatrice Chebet recalled.
She was then taken to the coach Paul Kemei who took her on in his Lemotit Athletics Club. Chebet’s father worked in a tea estate and the young girl grew up in her grandmother’s house.
“At times I am lost for words when I look at where I have reached when I look or talk to my grandmother,” Chebet had said last year. “She always reminds me of the first time I joined Lemotit…to work hard and always embrace discipline,” said Chebet. Chebet also spoke about the role of her parents Francis and Lillian “They are everything to me since I always fall back to them in my high or low moments.” Last year, she said she is on a mission “to restore Kenya’s glory in women’s track running”, and going by the events in the Olympics and now in Tokyo, she is walking that talk.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
