When she won the Olympic gold medal over the 1,500m distance in Beijing in August 2008, very few had any clue who Nancy Jebet Lagat was.

After enduring poor form and injuries in 1999 season which ruined her campaign at the World Championships in Berlin, Jebet has moved to a new frontier to become the inaugural IAAF diamond League winner.

It was no doubt that she was a novice in 1,500m. But against the odds, she emerged from the shadows of race favourites Maryam Jusuf Jamal (Bahrain), the world champion, to strike gold and become the second woman after Pamela Jelimo (800m) to win gold for Kenya in the Olympics.

Coached by Italian Claudio Berendelli and married to marathon runner Kenneth Cheriuyot, winner of the 2001 Rotterdam marathon, Lagat failed to build on this success and construct her own empire of medal collections.

Failed to impress

Many viewed her as a one hit wonder and their assessment was endorsed in 2009 when, coupled with injuries and loss of form, Lagat failed to impress and lost almost all the races she competed in including failing to impress at the World Championship in Berlin.

Yet, the Kenya Air force corporal, whose father Joseph Langat ran the 5000m at international level, has turned the tables in 2010 and proved to be the real “lone wolf” left in the competition for Kenya. Well, the wolf has some bite in her and bite she can.

But she pointed out that it was not her father that got her into running but the teachers in her school in Eldoret.

“I started running in school because I liked it, not because anyone encouraged me and in 1995 I made the Kenyan team, but I could not represent my country because I was under-age.”

In the Athens Olympics, she went out in the semis and in Helsinki fared even worse by failing to progress beyond the heats. So did she think she stood a chance in Beijing? “No, I am completely surprised,” she said then. “I was not expecting to perform to the level that I have.”