Interview: Kenya's Kibet to make comeback in athletics after maternity

Two-time 5,000m World Athletics Championship silver medalist Sylvia Kibet has said she plans to make a comeback to win big races before retiring from athletics.

Kibet, 32, who is expecting her second child soon, said that she anticipates to win one of the Big Five (a reference to the London, Boston, Berlin, New York and Chicago Marathons which are elite races with robust prize money and bonuses) marathon races before finally hanging her spikes.

"After the birth of my daughter in 2005, I emerged from motherhood as a better athlete and went ahead and became runners-up during the respective World Championships in Berlin in 2009 and Daegu in 2011," Kibet told Xinhua early this week during an interview in Iten town, western Kenya.

"It is a road that I have travelled before, and like wine, which is said to get better with age, I have been running better as I advance in age," she said.

Kibet said she plans to make a comeback in the marathon during which she anticipates to cut her personal best time of 2hrs 26mins to 2hrs 20mins during one of the Big Five marathon races.

Kibet, the second born in a family of seven sisters and three brothers -- out of which six are active runners -- would, as a young girl, run to and from primary school situated five kilometers away from home every day in her quest for education.

As her athletics career began to take shape, she started by representing her class, and then graduated to representing her school followed by her province and finally her country.

Today she lives in comfort with a palatial home to boot, a fleet of SUV cars, rental houses, and a petrol station amongst her other investments.

However, despite her trappings of success and fame, Kibet maintains a normal lifestyle when she is among her fellow villagers and can be easily spotted interacting with them.

"I believe in myself. I have a preference for life in the countryside and I like being among the people in order to motivate them and assist them where necessary," she said.

After she won the silver medal in 1,500m during the 1999 World Youth Championship in Athletics, Kibet took a break from athletics after she married former middle-distance runner Erastus Limo and after giving birth, made her comeback in 2005. She won the silver medals in the 5,000m at the World Championships in Athletics in both 2009 and 2011.

Kibet missed the medal bracket during the 2010 Beijing Olympic Games where she finished fourth in the 5,000m event.

"Beijing Olympics was my second biggest race after the 2007 Osaka World Championships. I was overwhelmed by the warmth of the Chinese people and the level of infrastructural development," she said.

Kibet pegs her retirement age form athletics at 37, which she said is the average age of departure from athletics in the case of women runners. Endit