CHAMPIONSHIP | Sprinter credits coach Jecinta Muraguri for her World
Championships success in Tokyo as Team Kenya finish with 11 medals
Newly crowned World 800m women champion Lilian Odira has attributed her success to coach Jecinta Muraguri after making history at this year’s global showpiece in Tokyo, Japan. Continuing a run of middle-distance and distance upsets in Tokyo, Odira, who was born and raised in Ndonyo, a remote village in Suna West, Migori County, sprang one of the biggest surprises of the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 by running down Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson in the deepest women’s 800m race in history.
Lilian Odera after winning the women 800m race and setting a Championship Record at the 2025 World Athletics
Championships in Tokyo, Japan. PHOTO | KELLY AYODI | TRBN |
Odira, 26, had barely been mentioned as a potential winner before the championships. With a pre-championship personal best of 1:56.52, she finished two seconds behind the British champion when they met at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Silesia in July. But she found another gear in Tokyo to win Kenya’s seventh gold medal of the World Championships. The dominant Kenyan women swept every event from 800m to marathon, with Faith Kipyegon winning the 1500m, Beatrice Chebet claiming the 5000m and 10,000m, Faith Cherotich taking the 3000m steeplechase, and Peres Jepchirchir triumphing in the marathon. Emmanuel Wanyonyi won the men’s 800m gold, while Dorcas Ewoi earned silver in the women’s 1500m, and Edmond Serem and Reynold Cheruiyot also made the medal tally.
“My coach Jecinta Muraguri was an athlete and she is one of the best coaches I have ever had in my life. We started with her from scratch until now when I have made it to be a world champion. She has been like my mum, my motivator, and my mentor. I want to thank her so much for moulding me because without her training I may not have been the world champion today,” Odira said.
For much of the race, defending world champion Mary Moraa looked the most likely Kenyan winner. She led until 600m, when Hodgkinson made her usual surge. Hodgkinson hit the straight in front but was challenged 50m from the finish line, first by training partner Georgia Hunter Bell, and then by Odira, who flashed home over the final 20m. Odira stopped the clock in a championship record of 1:54.62, closely followed by the British pair of Hunter Bell (1:54.90) and Hodgkinson (1:54.91). In a rarity for athletics, all three medalists have female coaches. Odira, coached by Jacinta Murigura in Nairobi, set an almost two-second personal best and broke the oldest championship record in the books – the 42-year-old mark of 1:54.68 set by Czech athlete Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983.
A late bloomer after giving birth to two sons, Odira has now improved by almost four seconds since she was eliminated in the semi-finals at the Paris Olympics a little over a year ago. “This is my first World Championships and I am really grateful to be leaving it as the world champion,” she said. “It has been a long time coming. I didn’t have any expectations; I was just following the pace of the race. I managed to have the most powerful finish and I got lucky to be going home with a gold medal.”
