Nancy Chelangat wins Kenya’s first medal in Tokyo

Monday saw Kenya take its first medal in this year’s Paralympic Games in Tokyo, when 1500m runner Nancy Chelangat took the bronze medal, clocking in with a season’s best time of 4 minutes and 45:58 seconds.

The 26 year old, Kericho born athlete was competing in the T11 vision impairment category, when she finished behind Monica Saavedra from Mexico and Louzanne Coetzee from South Africa, who took the gold and silver medals, with times of 4:37:40 and 4:40:96, respectively.

With the help of her guide and brother, Geoffrey Rotich, who she credits with giving her the motivation to push through the last stages of the race and over the finish line, was rightfully elated with her performance. “I really did my best. My target was to win any medal and I am very happy to have won a bronze. It means a lot to me. It is actually him (Rotich) who pushed me with 200m to go, he told me to keep pushing and I really thank him for that,” said Chelangat, after the race.

Chelangat, who was named Sportswoman with an Impairment of the year, at the 2016 Sports Personality of the Year Awards [SOYA] in Kenya, has also previously won the silver medal in the same event, five years ago at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.