Saturday was a red letter day for Kenya at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, as Beatrice Chebet and Emmanuel Wanyonyi took the women’s 5000m and men’s 800m titles.
Chebet added the 5000m to her 10,000m title to repeat the double she completed at the Olympic Games in Paris last year.
Wanyonyi won a nail-biting contest against the likes of Djamel Sedjati and Marco Arop to claim gold with a championship record of 1:41.86.
For both the Kenyan distance stars, World Championships glory came off the back of a season of dominance in the Wanda Diamond League.
Record-breaking Chebet
After an almost perfect campaign in 2024, Beatrice Chebet headed into the current season as reigning Olympic and Diamond League champion.
She picked up exactly where she had left off in 2025, hogging the headlines in the first half of the season with a series of stunning Diamond League performances.
The Kenyan opened her title defence in style with a meeting record and world lead of 14:27.12 in the 5000m at the first meeting of the season in Xiamen.
She went one better in Rabat a few weeks later, clocking an African and Diamond League record of 8:11.56 in the 3000m.
Having built up a significant lead in the standings, the Kenyan refused to let up and went from strength to strength as the outdoor season progressed.
She made more athletics history in Rome in June, clocking 14:03.69 to become the second-fastest woman in history over 5000m.
It seemed only a matter of time before she would break the world record – and a month later in Eugene, the time was finally ripe.
At the Prefontaine Classic, Chebet rampaged to a jaw-dropping 13:58.06, breaking the world record and becoming the first woman ever to go under the 14-minute mark over five kilometres.
It was her 12th Diamond League win in three years, and one which set her up perfectly for a successful charge at the world title in Tokyo.
Wanyonyi wows the world
While Chebet was in a class of her own for much of the season, Wanyonyi’s success has come in one of the most competitive eras ever seen in the men’s 800m.
The Kenyan middle-distance star came into 2025 targeting a third straight Diamond League title, but he had his work cut out against a growing field of world-class rivals.
Wanyonyi started his season with a surprise defeat, finishing third behind Tshepiso Masalela and Max Burgin in Rabat.
Yet he bounced back quickly with a winning season’s best of 1:42.78 in Oslo and a superb world lead of 1:41.95 in Stockholm.
His rivals took the fight to him again in July, and the Kenyan had to dig deep for victories in London and Monaco.
He beat Josh Hoey by a quarter of a second in Monaco to clock another world lead of 1:41.44, before and outwitting Marco Arop with a well-timed kick in London.
The USA’s Hoey then inflicted another shock defeat on Wanyonyi in Lausanne, before the Diamond League champion showed his quality once again at the Wanda Diamond League Final in Zurich.
Pursued down the home straight by Burgin and Arop, the Kenyan had to dig deep to keep his nose in front, and crossed the line just centimetres ahead of his rivals to win a third successive title.
It was a typical displac of title-winning tenacity from the Olympic champion, which he would end up repeating in Tokyo a few weeks later.
