Catherine Ndereba

Catherine Ndereba
Ndereba at the 2007 World Championships
Full name	Catherine Nyambura Ndereba
nation	Kenya
birthday	July 21, 1972
place of birth	Nyeri
size	160 cm
Weight	45 kg
Career
discipline	Long distance running
Best performance	2:18:47 h ( marathon run )
status	resigned
End of career	2008
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 2 × 0 × World championships 2 × 1 × 0 ×
Olympic games silver Athens 2004 marathon silver Beijing 2008 marathon  World championships gold Paris 2003 marathon silver Helsinki 2005 marathon gold Osaka 2007 marathon

Catherine Nyambura Ndereba (born July 21, 1972 in Nyeri ) is a Kenyan long-distance runner . She was twice world champion, once vice world champion and twice Olympic runner-up in the marathon .

Ndereba, who belongs to the Kikuyu ethnic group , grew up with Nyeri in a large family with seven siblings. Even in her school days she was a passionate runner. Originally she wanted to become a teacher, but after her first sporting successes, she decided, like many other runners, to serve in the Kenyan prisons. During her professional training, she met Anthony Maina. In 1995 both graduated, married and moved to Nairobi .

The following year, Ndereba began competing in international road races and was named Road Racer of the Year by Runner's World and the Running Times . Even after a baby break in 1997, she was successful. In 1999 she was third at the World Half Marathon Championships . That same year, she finished sixth in her full-distance debut in the Boston Marathon and second in the New York City Marathon . In 2000 she won both the Boston Marathon and the Chicago Marathon , as well as the following year, where she set a world record in Chicago with 2:18:47 h.

She finished second in both races in 2002. The following year she finished second in the London Marathon and the New York Marathon and won the marathon of the World Athletics Championships in 2003 in Paris / Saint-Denis. Differences with the Kenyan federation prevented participation in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney . She was only able to compete at the 2004 Games in Athens. She won the silver medal in the marathon, behind Mizuki Noguchi and in front of Deena Kastor . As in the previous year, she won the Boston Marathon in 2005, making it the record winner there. At the World Championships in Helsinki in 2005 she was second in the marathon behind Paula Radcliffe .

In 2006 she won the Osaka Women's Marathon and finished third in the New York Marathon. In the heat race of the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, she won the marathon on September 2, 2007 in 2:30:37 h. She is the first to become a two-time marathon world champion and the oldest female title holder to date. At the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 she was able to win the silver medal again, this time behind Constantina Tomescu from Romania and in front of the Chinese Zhou Chunxiu .

Catherine Ndereba is 1.60 m tall and has a competition weight of 45 kg. Because of the support she receives from her husband, who is her manager and who looks after her daughter in her absence, both are considered role models for emancipated couples in Kenya. Her two younger siblings Anastasia and Samuel Ndereba are also successful as long-distance runners.

Personal bests

• 5000 m : 15: 27.84 min, May 13, 2000, Osaka
• 10,000 m : 32: 17.58 min, May 7, 2000, Mito
• 10 km: 31:02 min, October 14, 2001, Budapest
• 15 km: 48:06 min, July 8, 2001, Utica
• Half marathon : 1:07:54 h, March 24, 2001, The Hague
• Marathon: 2:18:47 h, October 7, 2001, Chicago

Web links

• Catherine Ndereba in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Athlete portrait on marathoninfo.free.fr
• Athlete portrait ( Memento from February 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) on the World Marathon Majors website
• Crazy Catherine, on top of the world , article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 7, 2002