Year Ender: Meet the athletics stars who brought joy in 2024

Kenya's Faith Kipyegon celebrates with Kenya's national flag after winning the Women's 1500m final of the Memorial Van Damme Diamond League athletics finals. [AFP]

Through their heroics, they brought joy to your living room this year. Their jaw-dropping performances wowed the world.

Kenyan athletes rarely disappointed in 2024 - one of the busiest years in athletics arena.

Athletics enthusiasts were not short of elation as athletes topped global contests as they displayed rare passion for a sport that has placed Kenya on the map for decades.

As they crossed the finish lines first and in the process of writing history, Kenyan athletes also showcased their unmatched endurance.

After all, their training in bases across the country has been the most rigorous and the hardest this year, they say.

Ultimately, they shattered World Records and threatened other fastest marks as they fired warning shots.

Further, the country’s world beaters overcame strong challenges to stand out on the podiums.

Apart from the records, they brought home medals and further beautified their wall cabinets.

Athletics enthusiasts trooped to various entertainment joints especially in the traditional Mecca of athletics and on many occasions left the spots happier because track and road racing giants delivered stunning wins.

We look at selected athletes who made 2024 a year worth a celebration and Kenyan fans prouder.

Faith Kipyegon

Kipyegon illuminated 2024 with her third 1500m Olympic title at the Paris Olympics.

The multiple World Champion also brought an Olympic silver medal in 5,000m from the Paris showpiece.

Apart from the Olympic medals, Kipyegon replayed her 2023 scripts in 2024, shattering her 1500m World Record.

As a result of the stellar show in Paris, the 1500m Greatest of All Time and the entire team that flew the country’s flag at the premier event were accorded a heroic reception back home in Eldoret.

“The competition in Paris was tough. At some point I almost gave up on chasing the gold medal because it was getting difficult. I had started getting satisfied with the two gold medals won by Beatrice Chebet,” she told top government and federation officials.

At the Paris Diamond League meeting on Sunday July 7, Kipyegon broke her world record in the women’s.

Kipyegon won the Diamond League race in 3:49.04, smashing her previous World Record of 3:49.11, which she set in Italy in 2023.

Thanks to her performances and a successful 2024, Kipyegon was awarded with an honorary doctorate degree in education.

Beatrice Chebet

Chebet has been unstoppable in 2024, a year that she clinched two Olympic titles and obliterated the 10,000m World Record.

She is ending 2024 having written history through her sweet victories in a year punctuated with tough competitions from extremely strong fields.

Chebet was the most successful athlete at the Paris Olympics after becoming the only athlete to win two individual gold medals.

Before the Olympics in Paris, Chebet had fired a warning shot after smashing the world 10,000m record in Eugene, an event that the country used as its national trial for the 25-lap race.

Chebet covered the 10,000m race in 28:54.14, chipping seven seconds off the previous world record of 29:01.03 set by Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia in Hengelo on June 8, 2021.

At the World Cross Country Championships in Belgrade, an event staged on March 30, Chebet stylishly defended her title, becoming the first senior female athlete to win the title back-to-back since Ethiopia’s Tirunesh Dibaba in 2006.

The 24-year-old won her second World Cross Country title in 31:08 and led a Kenyan clean podium sweep. Lilian Kasait and Margaret Chelimo settled for silver and bronze respectively.

“I believed that I could do it. I just wanted to win the 10,000m for my country. My country has never won a gold medal (in the women’s 10,000m). So I said I wanted to be the first,” she said in Paris.

Emmanuel Wanyonyi

Wanyonyi, who was transitioning to the senior ranks, brought joy this year as he continued his brilliant shows.

At the Paris Olympics, the world 800m silver medallist fought hard for a title.

He won the Olympic title in 1:41.19, becoming the third-fastest performer in history, behind only world record-holder David Rudisha and Wilson Kipketer.

Wanyonyi, 20, became the youngest ever winner of the event in Olympic history, leading a race of unprecedented depth.

In April he broke the world road mile record with 3:54.56 at the Adizero Road to Records event in Herzogenaurach, Germany.He improved the previous world record of 3:56.13 set by USA’s Hobbs Kessler at the World Road Running Championships Riga in 2023. Wanyonyi held Kessler to a second place at the German race.