The making of Cheptegei
Joshua Cheptegei waves the Uganda flag after breaking the 10,000m track world record during the NN Valencia World Record Day at the Turia stadium in Valencia, Spain on Wednesday. PHOTO | AFP
What you need to know:
- By then, it had only been over a year after Cheptegei had come to the world stage with the 10,000m title at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Eugene, USA.
Joshua Cheptegei has had a turnaround in his career, rising from mediocrity to now a world beater.
His name is in the upper echelons of long distance running and it could even rise higher to the level of greats such as Ethiopians Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele, and Kenyans Eliud Kipchoge and Paul Tergat. And going by his form, it could only be a matter of time for the 24-year-old.
Cheptegei’s meteoric rise has been masterminded by his coach Dutch Addy Ruiter with whom he started working in late 2015 in Kapchorwa.
By then, it had only been over a year after Cheptegei had come to the world stage with the 10,000m title at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Eugene, USA.
In 2015, he also won the Africa Junior 10,000m title in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. And he won the Berlin ASICS Grand 10K in Germany as well as the Seven Hills 15K Run in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
In his first year as a senior athlete, Cheptegei began 2016 by winning big road races - the Carlsbad 5K in USA and the Laredo 10K in Spain.
He claimed the national 10,000m title before emerging as Uganda’s best runner at the Rio Olympics with two top-10 finishes; eighth in the 5,000m final and sixth in the 10,000m final.
In 2017, he won 10,000m silver behind Briton Mo Farah at the London World Championships. In April 2018, he won the Commonwealth double in Gold Coast, Australia.
Last year, Cheptegei won the World Cross-country title in Aarhus, Denmark, the 5,000m DL title, the world 10,000m crown in Doha, Qatar, and the 10km WR in Valencia, Spain, on December 10.
