Lonah Chemtai Salpeter

Lonah Chemtai Salpeter was born in 1988 in Kenya

Lonah Chemtai was born on 12 December 1988 in the village of Kapkanyar in western Kenya, into a family of the Pokot tribe of the Kalenjin people. She grew up with 12 siblings in a home without electricity or running water. After her father died in 2005, she helped her mother on the family farm.

In December 2008 she came to Israel to work as a live-in nanny for the family of Kenya's ambassador, living in Herzliya. She began running in a park there in 2010. In 2011 she met running coach Dan Salpeter, who became her husband and coach, and they married in 2014. Their son Roy was born in December 2014.

She won several Israeli titles at 5000 and 10,000 metres between 2012 and 2015. In February 2016 she won the Tel Aviv Marathon, her first marathon, and in March 2016 she received Israeli citizenship. She ran the marathon at the 2016 Rio Olympics but left the race with an injury.

In 2018 she won the 10,000 metres at the European Championships in Berlin, the first Israeli athlete to win gold there. That year she also won the Florence Marathon with an Israeli record. She won the 2020 Tokyo Marathon and ran 2:17:45 that year, an Israeli record.

In 2022 she won marathon bronze at the World Championships, silver at the New York City Marathon and 10,000 metres bronze at the European Championships. She finished third at the 2023 Boston Marathon and 8th in the marathon at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She lives in Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan and runs for Maccabi Tel Aviv.