Nancy Jebet Langat

Nancy Langat (left) at the 2009 World Championships

Nancy Jebet Langat (born August 22, 1981 in Eldoret ) is a Kenyan middle-distance runner and Olympic champion .

At Junior World Championships she won silver in 1998 and gold in 2000 in the 800-meter run . As an adult, she switched to the 1,500 meter distance . In 2004 she became African champion and reached the semi-finals at the Olympic Games in Athens . The following year she was eighth on the short distance at the World Cross Country Championships , but was eliminated at the World Championships in Helsinki in advance.

After a two-year break from competition, she was third in the Kenyan eliminations for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 . There she surprisingly won in her personal best of 4: 00.23 minutes ahead of the two Ukrainians Iryna Lishchynska and Natalija Tobias . At the World Athletics Championships 2009 in Berlin, however, she could not qualify for the final.

The 2010 season was again extremely successful for Langat. At the African Championships in Nairobi she won the title in the 1500 meter run, at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi she won the 800 and 1500 meters. She also secured overall victory in the 1,500 meter run in the IAAF Diamond League .

Nancy Jebet Langat is a member of the Kenyan Armed Forces and lives in Nairobi . She is married to the marathon runner Kenneth Cheruiyot .