Updated 1 May 2008

Cecilia KIPLAGAT, Kenya (Javelin, Shot Put)

Born 3 July, 1974; Goitugum Location, Kapcherop, Marakwet.

Height: 178 cm: (5’10”); weight: 62kg

Coach: Elizabeth Olaba,

Team: Kenya Prison

Rank: Senior Sergeant

Cecilia Kiplagat started out as all-round sportswoman before settling as the ideal quintessential field athlete. She has dutifully followed the footsteps of the few Kenyan women field exponents, such as four-time National champion in Javelin, Elizabeth Olaba, to establish a stranglehold that has lasted a decade.

Kiplagat, an eight-time National champion in the Javelin, who also has five Discus titles, hails from an area famous for producing steeplechasers, rather than field athletes. She schooled at Goitugum Primary, where her love for anything sporty started to manifest itself at an early age.

“I loved sport so much,” Kiplagat said. “Physical Education lessons were my favourite and I soon started playing in the school’s football, volleyball, track and field teams. Initially, I had preference for shot put and, from the first time I competed, I remained unbeaten until I left.”

Upon completion of her primary school studies in 1993, Kiplagat did not join secondary school for lack of school fees (her parents were peasant farmers) and travelled to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi the following year when she heard that Kenya Prisons were holding their track and field championships.

“I went there to impress them to recruit me into their team,” she recalled. “I had planned to enter the shot put competition but, when I got there, I was surprised to find so many competitive participants in that event so I quickly changed to Javelin and my throw was enough to win the championships,” she says.

Her feat impressed the then Kenya Prisons coach, Olaba (former eleven-time Shot Put and ten-time Discus national champion) who promptly recruited her to the institution’s team.

Kiplagat pays tribute to Olaba, whom she identifies as her mentor and only coach. “I was happy I had her to help me,” she said. “Everything I know to date is what she gave me. I thank God that I met her since I would not be where I am today.” At that time, her best throws in Javelin ranged between 30m to 35m but Olaba introduced her to gym training to tone her body to the task.

She joined the Kenya Prisons Training College in Nairobi in August 1995 and graduated the following year (February) as a warden. At the college, she was in the same class as the future World women’s Marathon champion, Catherine Ndereba. Upon completion, both were posted at Nairobi West Prison where they serve to date, Kiplagat having risen to a senior sergeant.

Under the tutelage of Olaba, Kiplagat won her first National Javelin title in 1999 with a throw of 47.52. At the National trials for the All Africa Games, she attained the event’s qualifying mark by recording 50.99 but was not selected for the event in Johannesburg. “Maybe they (Athletics Kenya) saw that I was too inexperienced or they did not see the importance of sending a Javelin athlete,” she bemoaned
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Kiplagat became a double National champion in her debut year when she threw the Kenyan record of 47.52 to take the top honours in the Discus, a feat that saw her gain promotion to a Prisons’ corporal boosting her morale. Kiplagat posted 51.47 to retain her national title in 2000 as her mentor, Olaba, took the Discus title from her (40:54).

In 2001, Kiplagat lost Olaba to a coaching position in Malawi, a move that affected her performance since there was no one to continue coaching her. She missed out on both Discus and Javelin national titles to Alex Elly and Grace Chelagat, the only year she has recorded that statistic in her career so far.

In 2002 Kiplagat bounced back to reclaim her National title in the Javelin (49:80) to make Kenya’s team to that year’s African Athletics Championships (AAC) in Tunis, Tunisia, where she finished fourth. “I was so happy to travel outside with our team and that greatly motivated me to aspire for more,” the Kenyan recalled.

In 2003, she scaled greater heights, sealing her second National Championships double. She roared to a national Javelin record of 52.79, her second Kenyan top field mark and added the Discus title by recording 39.19 in the event’s final. She boarded the plane in Kenyan colours for the Abuja AAG after winning the Javelin (47.79) at the event’s trials. In Abuja, she had to settle for fourth. However, that saw her qualify for that year’s Afro Asian Games, in Hyderabad, where she finished a commendable fifth. Towards the end of that year, she was again recognised by her employers and was elevated to a sergeant.

After clinching her third National double in the Discus (27.71) and Javelin (46.30) Kiplagat took her place in the national team for the 2004 AAC in Brazzaville, Congo, where she scooped Kenya’s first and only international Javelin medal when she took bronze (48.78).

“I am proud of that achievement and it inspires me to repeat something similar,” she said. “But, due to lack of proper technical coaching, my best was way far behind the winner who recorded 60m and I had beaten her in Abuja.” Kiplagat refers to South Africa’s Sunett Viljoen.
  
In 2005, another Discus (40.66) and Javelin (48.55) national double, her fourth, was achieved and the following year after a routine victory at the two events at the Kenyan Championships, she donned the country’s colours for the 2006 AAC in Mauritius. There she could not replicate her Brazzaville achievements and had to be content with fourth (49.96m) in the Javelin.

“My performance was slowly regressing because I had no coach to train me or competition to inspire me to perform better locally,” Kiplagat said. “I was not pleased to see athletes I had beaten before improve their throws while mine stagnated.”

Last year, her form improved with the AAG in Algiers in mind. Kiplagat shattered her own national record with 58:15 at the AK meeting in Kisumu. She picked up an unprecedented fifth Discus (42.23) title and sixth Javelin (51.71) national titles to qualify for Algiers. There her best throw of 49.47 saw her finish fifth, her worst placing at a continental event. She returned for the National trials for the Osaka World Championships where she took top honours with a much improved 50.27.

This year, the peerless competitor hauled 50.79 to effortlessly book her place in the national team for the AAC in Addis with top honours at the trials. “I can dream of the Beijing Olympics but I have to perform well in Addis Ababa to achieve that,” she said. However, I feel that I could have been a much better athlete if I could have been given more support by our federation.

“I have no coach and what Olaba taught me is still what I use, hence my stagnating performances. I have never been to Europe or trained in a centre of excellence in field events and I hope that I would get the opportunity to enter one to improve my own as well as the immense talent we have in Kenya.”

Kiplagat plans to train more women to emulate her achievements when her career is over but, at 32, and seemingly with no serious contender, her reign as the Kenya’s field events queen will not be brought to an end soon. 
 

Personal Best

Javelin: 53.58m (2007)  
 

Yearly Progression

2000: 50.88; 2002: 51.47; 2003: 52.79; 2004: 48.78; 2005: 48.55; 2006: 49.96; 2007: 53.58.

Career Highlights

2002   4th African Championships
2003   4th All Africa Games
2004   3rd African Championships
  5th Afro Asia Games
2006   4th African Championships
2007   5th All Africa Games

Prepared by James Wokabi and Mutwiri Mutuota for the IAAF ‘Focus on Athletes’ project. Copyright IAAF 2008