Double Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet says her ultimate target this season is to seal a double in the 5,000m and 10,000m at the World Athletics Championships slated for 13-21 September 2025 in Tokyo Japan.
Chebet who won the two-kilometer race in the National Police Service Cross Country Championships on Friday at Ngong Racecourse, Nairobi said her victory was a precursor of the season ahead.
She will skip the National Cross-Country Championships scheduled for 8 February at the Eldoret Sports Club to prepare for the 2025 Mumbai 10km race due 16 February in India.
“I have previously won bronze and silver at the World Athletics Championships and now my main target is to secure gold medal in Tokyo this year,” the 24-year-old said.
The Police Constable won silver in the 5,000m at the 2022 World Champs in Eugene, Oregon and settled for a bronze over the same distance a year later in Budapest, Hungary.
Should she replicate her Paris24 Olympics feat, where she won both the 5,000m and 10,000m races, Chebet will become the first woman to hold both the Olympics and Worlds 5,000m and 10, 000m titles concurrently.
Chebet describes her sub-29 minutes run in the 10, 000m in Prefontaine, USA, sub-14 minutes in the five-kilometer in Barcelona, Spain and the Olympics double as phenomenal and prominent feats.
“It’s my dream to build my performance and enrich my profile. I had no intentions of breaking the records but either way it happened,” she added.
The World Cross Country Championships gold medalist holds the women only 5km record of 14:13 set in Barcelona, 2023, the 5km mixed race (13:54 Barcelona, 2024) and the 10, 000m world record of 28:54.24 set in Eugene, 2024.
The previous 10, 000m record of 29:01.03 was held by Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey.
The athlete ended her splendid 2024 season with a win in the 5km Cursa dels Nassos Road Race in Barcelona in record time 13 minutes and 54 seconds becoming the first woman to run the race in under 14 minutes.
“I ended the 2024 season well and am off to a flying start of the 2025 season,” Chebet, who won the Cross Internacional Juan Muguerza – a World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold meeting – in the Spanish town of Elgoibar on 5 January said.
However, Chebet, nicknamed the ‘smiling assassin’, ruled out plans to attack the records this year but is focused on delivering gold double in Tokyo.
“I do not have plans to chase the records but in good race conditions I believe it is an achievable feat. Furthermore, if my body is in great shape a world record can also happen,” said Chebet.
“Discipline in athletics is the key. I want to be a role model to the upcoming runners. I want to show them that you can still dominate by following the right ways and avoid doping,” the Londiani based athlete concluded.
