Peres Jepchirchir
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Women's athletics | ||
Representing  Kenya
|
||
| IAAF World Half Marathon Championships | ||
 |
2016 Cardiff | Individual |
|
2016 Cardiff | Team |
Peres Jepchirchir (born 27 September 1993) is a Kenyan female long-distance runner who competes mainly in road running competitions. She was the gold medallist at the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in 2016. Her best time for the half marathon of 1:05:06, set on 10 February 2017 in UAE, is the world record.
Jepchirchir ran track while at school and was spurred on by the achievements of Mary Keitany, who was a world half marathon champion at the time. She began to compete in road races in 2013, starting with two wins at 10K runs in South Africa, then a third-place finish at the Kisumu Marathon in her native Kenya, finishing the distance in 2:47:33 hours. She turned to cross country running at the start of 2014 and managed to take second place to Faith Kipyegon at the Kenyan Cross Country Championships – her first significant finish at national level.
Her talent was spotted by Gianni Demadonna's team and she began to earn invitations to high level European road races. She won three straight races in France in late 2014, winning the Le Lion Half Marathon (in a course record of 69:12 minutes), the Marseille-Cassis Classique Internationale, then the Corrida de Houilles. She was narrowly runner-up to Janet Kisa at the end-of-year BOclassic 5K.
She made her highest profile appearance yet at the 2015 London Marathon, but failed to build on her shorter distance achievements, as she could not finish the full marathon distance. However, she began to reach the peaks of road running in 10K and half marathon that year. Her best of 30:55 minutes at the Prague Grand Prix was the second fastest globally for the season and one week later she set a course record of 67:17 minutes to win the Ústí nad Labem Half Marathon – a time which placed her seventh on the year's top lists. She also defended her title in Marseille in October.
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