Just a few years ago, Faith Cherotich was a complete unknown. Now she is a world champion.
The 21-year-old Kenyan completed her remarkable rise to the top on Wednesday with a superb, cool-headed victory in the final of the 3000m steeplechase at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
Perched comfortably behind defending champion Winfred Yavi for much of the race, Cherotich timed her kick to perfection at the final water jump, leaving Yavi trailing in her wake on the home straight.
She crossed the line in a championship record of 8:51.59, claiming her first ever major championship gold medal.
Yet Cherotich’s win did not come out of the blue. Over the past three years, her road to gold has been paved with diamonds.
The Kenyan first burst onto the world stage as a teenager when she finished third at the Wanda Diamond League Final in Zurich in 2022.
A bronze medal at the World Championships in Budapest followed a year later, but it wasn’t until the Diamond League Final in 2024 that Cherotich finally won a global title.
The young Kenyan headed to the series final in Brussels having spent much of the year in Yavi’s shadow, but she stunned the Olympic champion with a gutsy final lap in the Belgian capital to claim her first Diamond Trophy.
That win was just the start, and Cherotich went from strength to strength in 2025, slowly challenging Yavi’s status as the best in the world.
She won three out of four races on the Road to the Final in 2025, beating Yavi in Doha and Oslo and losing only once to her in Eugene.
Come the Wanda Diamond League Final in Zurich, Cherotich was firm favourite to defend her series title, and she didn’t disappoint.
She stormed to victory in 8:57.24 at the Letzigrund Stadium, going under nine minutes for the third race in a row.
“I am so happy to have defended my Diamond League title. My dream is now to win the World Championships,” she said after collecting a second Diamond Trophy.
On Wednesday, that dream became reality.
