Olympic Women’s 5,000 Preview: Kipyegon, Tsegay, & Chebet in Battle of the Stars

While the 2024 Paris Olympics will start with a bang with the men’s 10,000-meter final on the very first night of track & field on Friday, the sprints will be in the spotlight for the next two nights with the women’s 100m final on Saturday and the men’s 100m final on Sunday. Distance junkies will have to wait until day 4 — Monday — for the next distance final, the women’s 5,000 meters (9:15 p.m. Paris time/3:15 p.m. US Eastern Time).

The race should be worth the wait. Because we are living in the era of the women’s distance freak.

That is meant as a compliment, because freakish is the only way to describe what women like Faith Kipyegon, Gudaf Tsegay, and Sifan Hassan have been doing in the last five years. It’s not just that the trio have run fast — they have combined to break eight world records in that span — it is that they have been redefining what is possible for women’s distance runners.

Before the freaks came along, it would have been crazy to suggest that someone could be one the best in the world in the 1500 and the 10,000 meters at the same time. But Hassan showed it was possible by sweeping those events at the 2019 Worlds in Doha. At the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, Hassan won bronze in the 1500 and gold in the 5,000 and 10,000. Now Tsegay is trying to follow in her footsteps; this year she ran 3:50 for 1500 on April 20 in Xiamen, then 29:05 for 10,000 a month later in Eugene. She is entered in the 1500, 5,000, and 10,000 in Paris.

(Rumors have been flying about whether Tsegay will actually run all three distances. Last week, Tsegay’s coach/husband Hluf Yihdego announced on Facebook that Tsegay would drop the 10,000 due to pressure from the Ethiopian federation, but he later deleted the post. For now, she remains entered in all three — and almost certain to run the 5,000 since that event concludes before the 1500 or 10,000 begins.)

Hassan’s range actually extends far beyond 10,000; last year, just six weeks after earning a 1500 bronze at Worlds, she won the Chicago Marathon in 2:13:44, the second-fastest women’s time ever. Again: freak.

After her Olympic triple three years ago, Hassan is entered in four events in Paris — the 1500, 5,000, 10,000, and marathon — but is not expected to contest all four (she will announce her plans in a press conference on Wednesday). Kipyegon, who is doing the 1500 and 5,000, looks almost lazy by comparison.

Combined, Hassan, Kipyegon, and Tsegay have won 10 of the 12 gold medals in the 1500/5,000/10,000 across the last four global championships (Hellen Obiri, who is in the marathon in Paris, won the 5000 in 2019 and Letesnebet Gidey, who isn’t in the Olympics, won the 10,000 in 2022). At the end of last season, it would not have been totally crazy to suggest they could sweep the Olympic podium in all three events.

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But things have changed since then. Hassan does not look like the same runner as in years past and a young star has emerged to challenge Kipyegon and Tsegay.

Kipyegon begins chase of unprecedented Olympic double

In 2023, Faith Kipyegon became the first woman to win the 1500 and the 5,000 at the same World Championships. This year, she will attempt to become the first to do it at the Olympics. If she can pull it off, she’d be just the sixth distance woman to win two gold medals at the same Olympics:

Kipyegon, already a two-time Olympic champion in the 1500, began 2024 with a strong base period.

“Faith had an incredible, positive winter training,” her agent Valentijn Trouw told LetsRun.com. “She did a lot of endurance, she was extremely stable. In all aspects of the training, she was looking good and maybe a little bit stronger than in previous years.”

Kipyegon was meant to open her season at the Xiamen Diamond League on April 20, but developed a minor muscle injury on the outside of her knee. She tried to train through it, but it did not improve, and though she did not miss a ton of running — she spent about 10 days cross-training — she pushed back her schedule, skipping Xiamen and the Pre Classic (May 25) and not opening up until the Kenyan Olympic trials on June 14.

But any worries that Kipyegon had lost a step were quickly dispelled. She dominated the 5,000 at the trials, running her last 1600 in 4:21 — ridiculous given the meet was held at nearly 5,500 feet of altitude in Nairobi. The next day, she won the 1500 in 3:53 — again at altitude. And in her next race, the Paris Diamond League on July 7, Kipyegon broke her own 1500 world record by running 3:49.04. She enters Paris in the shape of her life.

That’s bad news for everyone else, because even among the freaks, Kipyegon simply does not lose. Since she was beaten by Hassan in Florence in June 2021, Kipyegon has lost precisely two races longer than 800 meters. The first was a 3,000 in Doha in 2022, where she was beaten by Francine Niyonsaba — an XY DSD athlete no longer eligible to compete in the women’s category due to excessive testosterone. Kipyegon’s only other defeat was her last race of 2023, the road mile world champs where she was sick and finished 3rd.

Chebet and Hassan closed in sub-57 at Worlds last year but it still was not enough to defeat Kipyegon (Kevin Morris photo)

Kipyegon is essentially the perfect runner. She has run more than a second faster at 1500m than any other woman in history and has a monster kick. But she is also an aerobic beast. Last year in Paris, Letesenbet Gidey raced Kipyegon in a 5,000. Gidey, then the world record holder at 14:06.62, knew she had to run close to world record pace to have a shot at dropping Kipyegon. That is exactly what she did, but even though Gidey ran 14:07.94, it didn’t have any effect as Kipyegon closed in 60.6 for her last lap and 28.1 for her last 200 to run 14:05.20 and break the world record herself.

Two months later, the field at the World Championship final took the opposite approach, letting the pace dawdle in an attempt to outkick Kipyegon. That did not work either. Even though Hassan (56.77) and Beatrice Chebet (56.86) both ran truly ridiculous last laps, Kipyegon was even better, closing in 56.59.

Can anyone beat Kipyegon?

Beating Kipyegon will be a monumental challenge, but there is a reason why they run the race. And it’s not as if Kipyegon just obliterated everyone in the 5,000 in Budapest last year; she had to dig deep and keep pushing all the way to the line and only beat Hassan by .23. Let’s look at the women who might be able to challenge Kipyegon in Paris.

Sifan Hassan, Netherlands, 31 years old, 14:13.42 pb

Hassan is the reigning Olympic champion and last year’s silver medalist, but her past accomplishments are the only reason to include her on this list as she has not been great in 2024. At the Pre Classic in May, Hassan finished 7th in 14:34, more than 16 seconds back of the win. Hassan was unconcerned by the result, saying she was in the midst of heavy training and that her result in Hengelo on July 7 would be a better indicator of her fitness. In that meet, Hassan was meant to run the 10,000, where pacers were scheduled to run 29:20 pace, but withdrew because the conditions were too windy. Instead, she ran the 1500 and finished a well-beaten 5th in 4:04.83. It’s hard to see her going from that to Olympic champ in one month.

Gudaf Tsegay, Ethiopia, 27 years old, 14:00.21 pb

Tsegay is the 2022 world champion at 5,000, the world record holder at 14:00.21, and has shown she is very fit in 2024, running 3:50 for 1500 in April and 29:05 for 10,000 a month later at Pre (though she was crushed by Beatrice Chebet in the latter race). That’s all incredibly impressive, but it is hard to ignore that Tsegay is 0-15 in her career against Kipyegon across all distances. That said, 14 of those 15 matchups were in the 1500, and in their one meeting at 5,000 meters (last year’s Worlds final), Tsegay was dealing with an injury and finished eight seconds back.

Beatrice Chebet, Kenya, 24 years old, 14:05.92 pb

Chebet has taken silver and bronze in the last two Worlds, but at just 24 years old, she is still improving. Last year, she ran a huge pb of 14:05 after Worlds to move to #3 all-time, and this year she won her second straight World XC title in March before running a world record of 28:54 for 10,000 meters at the Pre Classic in May. Kipyegon did beat her by six seconds in the 5,000 at the Kenyan trials, but Kenyan athletes often don’t bother going all-out at the trials once they’re on the team and Chebet’s spot on the team was never in doubt.

Last year at Worlds, Chebet closed in 56.86 for her last 400 to take the bronze. Kipyegon closed in 56.59. If Chebet is just a little bit better in 2024, that could be the difference. The problem is that Kipyegon, who has already broken her 1500m world record this year, looks to have improved as well.

The Americans

The women’s 5,000 is the only distance event in which the USA has never won a medal at Worlds or the Olympics and given how stacked the field is in Paris, that drought will not end this year. It does not help that US champ Elle St. Pierre is not even running this event in Paris, opting to focus her efforts on the 1500 meters.

US runner-up Elise Cranny has been ninth at the last two Worlds and will look to finish higher than that after running a 1500 pb of 3:57 at the Olympic Trials. US third-placer Karissa Schweizer was 9th in 2019 and 11th at the 2021 Olympics but has not made a global 5,000 final since then due to injury. Whittni Morgan is the final member of the US team and would be fortunate just to make the final as she was 5th at the Olympic Trials and is only on the team because two women scratched ahead of her.

JG prediction 1. Kipyegon 2. Chebet 3. Tsegay

As great as Chebet and Tsegay are, Kipyegon is even better. I like Chebet’s upset odds more given she is younger and beat Tsegay in the 10,000 at Pre. But I expect Kipyegon to win her third Olympic gold, which would tie her with the Tirunesh Dibaba and Tatyana Kazankina for the most by a female distance runner.

Addition by Robert Johnson: It seems  that Kipyegon would be most vulnerable if we get some sort of tag team affair with Chebet and Tsegay both making the pace more honest than last year and then seeing what Kipyegon has in the kick.