Kipyegon wins historic fourth world 1500m gold

Faith Kipyegon stormed to a historic fourth world 1500m title as the Kenyan great extended her streak of dominance with a fifth consecutive global gold in the event.

The 31-year-old matched retired men's world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj as the only other athlete in history to amass four 1500m titles at the championships.

After securing her third consecutive Olympic triumph last year, this was also a third straight world gold for Kipyegon, who controlled the final from the start before bursting clear of her rivals on the final lap.

Not only is the world record holder unbeaten in the past five global finals but, excluding heats, she has not suffered defeat over the distance for more than four years.

Australia's Olympic silver medallist Jessica Hull faded to bronze after attempting to follow as Kipyegon wound up the pace, with Dorcus Ewoi securing a Kenyan one-two.

The unstoppable Kipyegon crossed the line in three minutes 52.15 seconds, the chasm separating her from her competitors evidenced by the near three-second wait for Ewoi to follow.

With outstretched arms and a relaxed smile which suggested it had never felt in doubt, Kipyegon celebrated the eighth global gold of her career.

That is level with Jamaican sprint star Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce - the only other woman to win as many as four world titles in the same event - and distance running great Tirunesh Dibaba for the most by a female athlete in individual events.

Kipyegon will now target a second successive world double in the 5,000m, the heats for which begin on Thursday before Saturday's final.

She became the first woman to achieve that world 1500m-5,000m double two years ago.

The competition in the women's 1500m is fierce, and was a factor in Great Britain's Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Georgia Hunter Bell's decision to prioritise the 800m in Japan.

Yet it has been a long time since the destination of the gold medal was in doubt.

Kipyegon has swept seven of the past eight global titles, with Sifan Hassan the last athlete to deny her at the 2019 World Championships in Doha.

Keen to continue pushing the boundaries - and, as a mother, inspire young girls and women in particular - she made an ambitious bid to become the first woman in history to run a sub-four-minute mile in June.

Although she came up short, she still ran 1.22 seconds faster than her personal best of 4:07.64 - the time which remains the official mile world record, and still five seconds faster than any other woman has run in history.

The oldest woman to ever win a world 1500m title, she continues to go from strength to strength.

Kipyegon began the year by just missing the world 1000m record in April, improved her 1500m world record to 3:48.68 in July, and was within a second of breaking the 3,000m record - which has stood for 32 years - in her final race before Tokyo.

One night after Armand Duplantis soared to a 14th world record and third world title at Japan's National Stadium, this too appears a reign of dominance unlikely to end any time soon.