Beatrice Chebet basks in World Athletics Championships acclaim

SILENCE greeted the athletes at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium four years ago.

But a superstar like Beatrice Chebet deserves the deafening roars she received as the World Athletics Championships kicked off with a bang in the Japanese capital.

Still only 25, Chebet had not even made her senior international debut when the Olympics came to Japan in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic with no fans in the stands.

So there was something bittersweet in the fervour on show as athletics’ biggest show got underway, with the Kenyan ending her country’s decade-long wait for a win over 10,000 metres.

What might have been.

These World Championships cannot replace what those in Tokyo were denied by the pandemic, but if the opening night is anything to go by, they will be more than a consolation.

And in Chebet, they have the first of many stars.

Ethiopia have tended to have more of a stranglehold on the longest track event, including a clean sweep in Budapest two years ago.

But after Chebet won the distance double in Paris last summer, she underlined her status as one of the great distance runners with a maiden World Championship title.

It came a decade on from Viviane Cheruiyot’s victory at this event in Beijing – the last Kenyan to do so – a fact that caught even Chebet by surprise.

“10 years later? I didn’t know that,” she admitted.

“Today, I’m so happy. Coming to Tokyo, I said ‘I have to go’. I didn’t have a gold medal at the world champs. I said ‘Beatrice, you have to go for it’. I’ve won a world cross-country; I’m an Olympic champion and now I’m a world champ. I’m so happy for myself.

“I want to thank each and everyone who has supported me from my coach, my family, Athletics Kenya Ministry and Kenya at large. I want to say thank you for your support, it means a lot to me.

“I’m standing here as a world champ and I’m so proud of myself.”

The thrilling race was greeted by the loudest roars of the evening as Chebet held off Italy’s Nadia Battocletti and Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, the defending champion.

It came after a spectacular final lap where Olympic silver medallist Battocletti looked as though she might come through on the final straight, only for one final kick from Chebet to see her home.

The victory over Battocletti was a repeat of Paris last summer, where she also beat compatriot Faith Kipyegon over 5000m.

Her aim now is to repeat the trick, with Cheruiyot one of just two women to have done the double at World Championships level, doing so in 2011, six years after Tirunesh Dibaba became the first.

But while Chebet is desperate to join that select group, she knows that beating good friend and triple Olympic 1500m champion Kipyegon will be a huge ask.

She added: “It will not be an easy race. Even today was not easy, you have to be strong mentally, physically and everything. Coming to the 5000 in a few days, I’m hoping to have good health, energy and we hope for a good result.

“It’s not an easy race, it’s a strong team and my target is to be on the podium and hopefully a gold again.

“We are friends (with Kipyegon) and coming to the track, we come and race. When we come to the track, it’s about teamwork. We assisted each other with Agnes (Jebet Ngetich, who finished fourth) today.

“Coming with Faith, if Faith wins, I will celebrate her. If I win, she will celebrate me. That is how our sport is, you have to celebrate your colleagues. I won today, tomorrow someone else will win.”

Whoever wins the medals on Sunday, few will be as warmly received as Chebet’s to open these Championships. But the biggest victory of all may be the supporters in the stands able to take it all in and make themselves heard.

Follow all the action from the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 on BBC.