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Peres Jepchirchir is the only athlete to have won the Olympic marathon, TCS New York City Marathon, and Boston Marathon. In August 2021, she won gold in the Tokyo Olympic marathon in 2:27:20 in Sapporo, Japan, after she wasn’t even originally named to the team when it was announced in early 2020. Jepchirchir broke from the lead pack as they were approaching the 25-mile mark to win by 16 seconds and claim Kenya’s second consecutive gold medal in the event. That November, she became the only Olympic gold medalist in the marathon to also win the TCS New York City Marathon in her career, finishing in 2:22:39, the third-fastest time in event history and eight seconds off the course record.

In April 2022, in a back-and-forth race that came down to the final mile, she fended off Ethiopian Ababel Yeshaneh to take the Boston Marathon title on Boylston Street in her debut in the race in 2:21:02. Earlier this year, she recorded another podium finish, taking third at the London Marathon.

Jepchirchir grew up in western Kenya in a large polygamous family of 24 kids; her family are farmers who grow tea and maize. She ran three to five kilometers to and from school each day, and as she got older, inspired by the achievements of four-time TCS New York City Marathon champion Mary Keitany, she turned to road racing.

Despite being the youngest and least experienced of the Kenyan team at 2016 World Athletics Half Marathon Championships, she led a Kenyan podium sweep and won her first of two half marathon world titles. The following year, she beat Keitany by seven seconds to break the half marathon world record in 1:05:06 in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE. What made her run all the more astonishing was that she was a few weeks pregnant at the time; she gave birth to her daughter, Natalia, in October 2017. Thirteen months after giving birth she won the Lisbon Half Marathon.

When the major marathons were canceled in 2020, Jepchirchir set her sights on the World Half Marathon Championships. She broke the women-only world record with a 1:05:34 run to win the Prague 21.1K – a clear sign she had returned to form after giving birth – and then went on to win the world title, carving another 18 seconds off her record.