How Kenya-born Israeli athlete Chemtai Salpeter puts a smile to the faces of Israelis

By and , July 20, 2022

It is said that love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies and this aptly befits Kenyan-born Israeli athlete Lonah Chemtai Salpeter and her Israeli husband Dan Salpeter.

Although Kenya is a renowned athletics powerhouse with her runners having no qualms about bagging every medal at their disposal, Chemtai made the discipline’s fanatics turn green with envy when she won Israel a bronze medal at the ongoing World Championships in Eugene, Oregon in USA.

Chemtai, who became an Israeli citizen in 2016, finished the race in a time of 2:20:18, just two minutes behind Ethiopia’s Gotytom Gebreslase, who won gold with a time of 2:18:11 and Kenya’s Judith Jeptum Korir, who came second, nine seconds after Gebreslase.

The 33-year-old’s breakthrough over the 42 kilometers race earned the blue-and-white its fourth-ever medal at the prestigious event so much so that Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid sent a congratulatory message to her.

“Congratulations to Lonah Chemtai Salpeter on the historic medal she won today at the World Championships! Lonah’s willpower and determination are a source of pride for Israeli athletics and for the entire State of Israel,” Lapid tweeted.

“Lonah, you are a champion,”Yair Lapid penned.

Success Afrika reported: “Lonah started jogging for fun from her passion for running and met Dan Salpeter, the man who would later be her coach and husband. She fell in love! Lonah competed in the marathon for Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics, & won the 10,000 metres 2018 European Athletics Championship.”

Chemtai’s breakthrough for his adopted country was merely by chance and not by design as she landed in Israel not much to further her athletics career but to look for a job to eke out a living.

She landed in Israel in 2008 to work as a nanny for the children of Kenya’s Ambassador to Israel and who was residing in Herzliya in the central coast of the country that lies in the Mediterranean Sea.

It was here that Chemtai met Dan Salpeter, an Israeli running coach, in 2011 and the two fell in love and married in 2014. The couple’s son, Roy, was born in December 2014.

The family then resided in Moshav Yanuv in central Israel before moving to Shoham and one thing led to another with Chemtai becoming an Israeli citizen in March 2016 on account of marriage to an Israeli citizen.

The union came eight years after Chemtai, who had been struggling to secure Israeli citizenship, began residing in Israel and a few days before she gained the cut-off to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics in which she represented the country.

By the 30th kilometers at the Olympics, her time put her in the top half of the runners, ranking her approximately 90th.

She left the race at the 33rd kilometer before explaining in her Facebook account” “Unfortunately, I was forced to stop by a shoulder problem. As you all know, I’m still nursing my 20-month-old son. During my training in Kenya, I tried to stop, but it caused me pain and a shoulder problem due to running with breasts full of milk. This limited me in the European championships in Amsterdam (a half-marathon) and happened again today. I promise to attain respectable achievements in the future and am going forward with my head held high.” she said.

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