After winning a medal or topping a podium, athletes will ask themselves ‘What next?’.
Middle-distance great Faith Kipyegon, a three-time Olympic gold medallist and a five-time world champion over 1500m and 5000m, has faced that question more times than most elite runners.
The 32-year-old Kenyan is now focusing some of her efforts off the track after announcing plans to build a maternity facility in her hometown Keringet.
Women living there have had to travel about 35km (21.75 miles) to access hospital care, putting mothers and new-borns at risk, and the new facility, named the Dare to Dream Maternity Ward, will provide safer births.
“While growing up in Keringet and actually still today, I see something that breaks my heart far too often. I see women go into labour full of hope, carrying life, carrying dreams and too many times, they come back empty-handed,” Kipyegon said.
“Not because they did anything wrong. But because the care they needed was too far away, too limited, or simply not good enough.
“Many give birth without proper facilities, without enough medical support, without dignity or safety.
“And the price of that is paid by mothers, by babies, by families and therefore by our future.”
Kipyegon, whose daughter Alyn was born in 2018, took part in a groundbreaking ceremony for the facility on Sunday which included a children’s Cross Country event.
The Dare to Dream Maternity Ward will be funded by Kipyegon’s shoe partner Nike as a legacy project after the Kenyan fell short in her bid to become the first woman in history to run a sub-four-minute mile in Paris in June last year.
“It’s a commitment to mothers, to local families, and to the next generation,” said Tanya Hvizdak, global head of running for Nike.
“Because when women have safe, dignified care in childbirth, entire communities rise up around them.”
