Joshua Cheptegei is the favorite to win the 10000m Tokyo Olympics gold medal

In May 2014, a little-known Ugandan runner named Joshua Cheptegei came second in the TCS World 10K in Bangalore. He finished behind Geoffrey Kamworor, who broke the course record on the day. In July 2014, the same athlete won the 10000m event at the World Junior Championships in Athletics. A star was being born.

In March 2017, at the World Cross Country Championships, held in Kampala, Uganda, the national team was keen to put on a good show beyond just organizing the event. Much to the surprise of most people, the then 20-year-old and still not very well known - outside of the world of athletics, at least - Joshua Cheptegei took the fight to the Kenyans and Ethiopians with a lap to go. He established an incredible 12-second lead over reigning champion Kamworor of Kenya, who had won the previous four editions.

Even at the relatively long distance of 10km for senior men, seven seconds is a lot to make up, and Joshua Cheptegei held that much of a lead over Kamworor heading into the final kilometer. Unfortunately, he blew up spectacularly, barely tottering to the finish line. But his performance had earned him the respect of fellow runners and marked him out as a competitor to watch. Since then, he has more than lived up to those expectations.

In August 2017, at the World Championships in London, Joshua Cheptegei came up short to Mo Farah by just 0.42 seconds, setting his personal best in the process. His blow-up only a few months earlier had been consigned to history.

In March 2019, Joshua Cheptegei returned to World Cross Country and led the Ugandan team to their first-ever gold medal. In 34 editions from 1981 - when Ethiopia won their first team gold - until 2019, only the Kenyan (24) and Ethiopian men (10) had won the team gold. That kind of dominance is reminiscent of the hold that Real Madrid and Barcelona have exerted on the La Liga title. Joshua Cheptegei also won an individual gold medal. Incidentally, another young Ugandan star, Jacob Kiplimo, won the individual silver.

Rhonex Kipruto of Kenya, who has since gone on to set a 10K world record on the road (broken by Joshua) and Selemon Barega of Ethiopia, who won silver at the 2019 World Championships in the 5000m, were all close behind. Joshua Cheptegei couldn’t have cared less.

Setting the record straight

Since then, he has gone on to break world records in 5000m and 10000m in 2020, which had remained untouched for almost a decade and a half. And those were set by the original legend of the World Cross Country, Kenenisa Bekele.

The favorite

Joshua Cheptegei is clearly the favorite to win both the 5000m and 10000m events at the Tokyo Olympics. Rhonex Kipruto and Jacob Kiplimo (who set the world’s leading time in 2021 for the 10K at Ostrava just a week ago) are likely to be his closest challengers, assuming they both make it to the Olympics. Both are ranked just below Cheptegei in the World Athletics rankings for 10000m for 2021.

Joshua Cheptegei - Future Olympic champion?

To his credit, Joshua Cheptegei also has a 5km, 10km and 15km world record on the road and ran 59:21 at the World Half Marathon Championships in October 2020 while training for his 10000m world record attempt. Clearly, the Ugandan is Kipchoge’s successor, if and when he takes to the roads - expected by 2024 after the next Olympics - he is most likely to break the current marathon world record. The 24-year-old might even emulate his countryman Stephen Kiprotich’s gold medal-winning feat at the marathon at the Olympics.