Sometimes, our childhood experiences shape the path we take as adults. There are children who loved to tinker with electronic spare parts and grew up to be engineers, there are those that admired their parents teaching roles and went on to pursue further education that would qualify them to be professors and lecturers, and then there’s those, like Brigid Kosgei, who discovered their athletic talents from their long commutes to school. For Brigid, her long-distance running abilities were not only discovered but improved every day as she commuted 10km to and from her primary school.
Today, Brigid Kosgei holds a world record as the fastest woman to complete a 42.2km marathon.
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Brigid hails from Elgeyo Marakwet County in the Rift Valley. Born into a humble home, her mother and six siblings faced several financial constraints throughout Brigid’s childhood. In 2012, when even school fees became too costly, Brigid was unable to sit for her final exams. She dropped out of school, devastated by the fate that had befallen her. However, Brigid had an unwavering determination that surpassed her sadness. She’d been an active girl thanks to her commute to school. She also had some success while competing in middle-distance events at school. And with that, the possibility of an athletic career seemed within reach.
She began training with her then-boyfriend, Matthew. The two soon got married and put training on hold when Bridig discovered she was expecting twins. When Chepchumba and Kibet were born in 2014, Brigid took to her motherly role but set aside time every morning to train with her husband. The couple’s daily morning runs were quickly noted by Eric Kimaiyo, a trainer at Kapsait Athletics Training Camp. He particularly took an interest in Brigid and invited her to join the training camp. She was to report to the camp every Monday, and leave on Saturday. For the new mother, it was a hard decision to spend less time with the twins and more time readying herself for the career she had dreamt about. With Matthew’s support and encouragement, she was able to enroll at the camp in 2015.
From that moment on, Brigid committed herself fully to her training. Her perseverance sometimes wavered, but her belief in herself always superseded. And with this came a win – her first, at the Porto Marathon in Portugal in November that year. Boasting our Kenyan endurance ability, the world was then introduced to another track champion from 254. The win further paved the way for more marathons in cities such as Lisbon, Honolulu, London, Chicago, and Copenhagen. In all these Brigid managed to maintain the top three positions of all the races. In 2017 she won the Honolulu Marathon and the Chicago Marathon in 2018.
2019 was yet another year for us to be reminded about the superstar marathon runner from Elgeyo. At only 25, she became the youngest athlete to win the London Marathon.
It didn’t quite stop there; Brigid then won The Great North Run, the largest half marathon in the world, held annually in North East England. Thereafter, she won – yet again – the 2019 Chicago Marathon where she beat the world record set by Paula Radcliffe earlier in 2003. Kosgei’s record time of 2 hours 14 minutes and 4 seconds was over a minute less than Paula’s time.
This has been a year for Brigid to shine, and she has indeed shone. From Elgeyo Marakwet to the world, we applaud Brigid for her unending tenacity, for her dedication to pursuing her goals and for slaying the year. We wish you the very best as you continue bagging those medals.
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