Julius Yego

Yego was born in Cheptonon (Soba River) location in Tinderet, Nandi District. He attended high school at Kapsabet Boys High School.[2]

Yego became interested in the javelin throw as a youth and he watched videos of athletes such as Jan Železný and Andreas Thorkildsen on YouTube to help with his technique and to learn how to train at a gym.[3][4] He competed in the high school regional championships in 2003. In 2006 he won the national junior title and broke the Kenyan junior record with a throw of 67 metres. More renowned for distance runners, Yego quickly ascended to the top of the Kenyan scene.[4] He won his first national title in the javelin at the age of nineteen in 2008 and defended it in both 2009 and 2010.[5]

He earned his first national call up in 2010 and threw a personal best of 74.51 m to take the bronze medal at the 2010 African Championships in Athletics, which was held in Nairobi.[6] He improved his best to 75.44 m at the Kenyan Commonwealth trials.[7] He travelled to New Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and ended the competition in seventh place with a best throw of 69.60 m. In 2011 he still did not have a throwing coach, due to the lack of popularity of the event in Kenya. Despite this, he won a fourth straight Kenyan title then went to the 2011 All-Africa Games and became Kenya's first ever champion in the event, throwing a Kenyan national record mark of 78.34 m.[3] This bettered Paul Lagat's fourteen-year-old national record (78.20 m). In respect of this achievement the IAAF (the sport's governing body) gave Yego a six-month scholarship to train alongside elite javelin coaches in Europe, with the aim of preparing him for the 2012 London Olympics.[8]

After two months of training at the IAAF-accredited centre in Kuortane, Finland, Yego returned to Kenya in April 2012 and threw a new record of 79.95 m. This was within the Olympic "B" standard for the event and gained him the prospect of becoming the first Kenyan person to compete in the javelin at the Olympics.[9] He improved the Kenyan record at Finnish Elite Games Series event in Kuortane on 22 July 2012, Finland throwing 81.12 metres [10] During the London 2012 Olympics qualifying round, he broke his own national record by 69 cm, to make it 81.81 m. That throw was enough to send him into the final, where he placed 12th.

At the 2013 World Championships in Moscow Yego placed fourth, improving his Kenyan record by more than three metres to 85.40 m. He was the first Kenyan ever to qualify for a field event final at the World Championships, and was in bronze medal position until Russia's Dmitriy Tarabin passed him on his last throw.[11] Track & Field News ranked Yego fifth in the world that year, the first time he'd been ranked in the top 10.[12]

Yego won the javelin at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, beating the reigning Olympic champion, Keshorn Walcott, with a distance of 83.87 m.[13] Yego was the first Kenyan athlete to win a Commonwealth title in a field event.[14] He won a second gold later that summer at the African Championships, throwing a season best 84.72 m and defeating world leader Ihab Abdelrahman El-Sayed of Egypt.[15]

Yego continued his rise in 2015, winning the Ostrava Golden Spike javelin on 26 May with a new Kenyan record of 86.88 m after his best throw was not flagged as a foul by the judges even though his hand touched the line.[16] On 4 June he improved to 87.71 m at the Golden Gala in Rome, placing second behind Vítězslav Veselý. Three days later, Yego won at the British Grand Prix in Birmingham, overtaking Veselý in the last round with a massive throw of 91.39 m; the throw was originally ruled a narrow sector foul, but after his coach requested a remeasurement of the sector angle, the original sector was found to not have been wide enough and the ruling was overturned. Yego's throw was a new African record, and the best in the world since 2006.[17][18] On 26 August Yego won the gold medal at 2015 World Championships with a throw of 92.72m.[19] At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Yego won silver with a throw of 88.24 m, despite only throwing once after picking up a right ankle injury.

Year	Competition	Venue	Position	Notes
Representing  Kenya
2010	African Championships	Nairobi, Kenya	3rd	74.51 m
	Commonwealth Games	New Delhi, India	7th	69.60 m
2011	All-Africa Games	Maputo, Mozambique	1st	78.34 m (NR)
2012	African Championships	Porto Novo, Benin	1st	76.68 m
	Olympic Games	London, United Kingdom	12th	77.15 m
2013	World Championships	Moscow, Russia	4th	85.40 m (NR)
2014	Commonwealth Games	Glasgow, United Kingdom	1st	83.87 m
	African Championships	Marrakech, Morocco	1st	84.72 m
2015	World Championships	Beijing, China	1st	92.72 m (AR)
2016	Olympic Games	Rio De Janeiro, Brazil	2nd	88.24 m
2017	World Championships	London, United Kingdom	13th	76.29 m
2018	Commonwealth Games	Gold Coast, Australia	13th (q)	74.55 m
	African Championships	Asaba, Nigeria	1st	77.34 m
2019	African Games	Rabat, Morocco	1st	87.73 m
	World Championships	Doha, Qatar	8th (q)	83.86 m1

¹No mark in the final

• 2009 – 74.00
• 2010 – 75.44
• 2011 – 78.34
• 2012 – 81.81
• 2013 – 85.40
• 2014 – 84.72
• 2015 – 92.72
• 2016 – 88.24
• 2017 – 87.97
• 2018 – 80.91
• 2019 – 87.73

• Julius Yego at World Athletics