Lonah Chemtai Salpeter

Salpeter was born in Kapnkyar, in Kenya’s Rift Valley, and grew up in a small village in West Pokot County in western Kenya without electricity or running water.[3][6] Her family belonged to the West Pokot, described as a subgroup of the Kalenjin.[6] She described her Pokot community as having a warrior tradition and recalled that, although many people there were good runners, running was not generally practiced.[3]

At the end of 2008, aged 20, she moved to Israel to work as a nanny in the Herzliya home of Kenyan diplomat Steve Loretah, caring for his children.[3][6] Running initially filled her spare time rather than serving as a planned career: “I had free time in the morning and the evening. I got bored, I started running. It was like a hobby for me, nothing serious.”[3]

Salpeter entered a 10-kilometer race organized by the Kenyan embassy in 2010 and finished in 47 minutes.[3] After she was noticed jogging in a Herzliya park, she was recommended to a coach at the Athletic Sharon club and began moving toward competitive running.[6] She placed second in her first serious race, a 10-kilometer event in Tiberias in 2011.[3] Her early experiences also included withdrawing from a race after seeing competitors wearing cleats, equipment she did not own and found intimidating.[3]

Following a leg injury, she was introduced to competitive runner Dan Salpeter, who began coaching her in 2011.[3] When her Kenyan foreign-service contract expired in 2013, she returned to Kenya for five months before obtaining a visa and moving back to Israel in May.[3] She and Dan married in Nairobi in August 2014, and their son, Roy, was born later that year.[3][1]

Her path to Israeli citizenship was prolonged despite her marriage to an Israeli and the birth of her son in Israel.[3][1] In 2016, a marathon in Tiberias ended with her hospitalization for hypothermia, but the Tel Aviv Marathon provided another opportunity to qualify for the Olympics.[3] She won in 2:40:16, nearly five minutes inside the Olympic qualifying time, later recalling, “That is where my life changed completely.”[3][1] She became an Israeli citizen in March 2016 and was eligible to represent Israel at the Rio Olympics.[3]

In Rio, Salpeter stopped during the Olympic marathon after experiencing sharp pain while still breastfeeding her son.[3][1] She later said that officials in Brazil had recommended leaving her infant in Israel and that, at 33 kilometers, she experienced pain she associated with the breastmilk she was carrying.[3] She also faced criticism in Israel over the race.[3]

At the 2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin, Salpeter won the 10,000 meters in 31:43.29, becoming the first Israeli woman to win European Championship gold.[3][6] Roy had accompanied his parents to a training camp in Italy before the championships.[6] Two days after her victory, she miscounted the laps in the 5,000 meters and stopped before the final lap.[3] She finished fourth but was subsequently disqualified for crossing lanes; her time was nevertheless reported as an Israeli record.[3]

In November 2018, Salpeter won the Florence Marathon in 2:24:17, setting both an Israeli record and a women’s course record.[3] By the time of a 2019 profile, she held Israeli records in the 1,500, 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 meters, as well as the half-marathon and marathon.[3]

Salpeter won the women’s Tokyo Marathon in 2020 in 2:17:45, setting a course record and improving the Israeli national record by more than two minutes.[7][2] She finished 50 seconds ahead of Ethiopia’s Birhane Dibaba in a race restricted to elite runners because of coronavirus concerns.[7]

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics were held in 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.[8] Salpeter was near the front of the women’s marathon before abdominal cramps struck in the closing kilometers.[9] She attributed the cramps to menstrual pain, slowed to a walk, and then continued, finishing 66th.[9] Dan Salpeter later described the experience as an important lesson for both of them.[9]

At the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Salpeter won marathon bronze in 2:20:18.[2] She became the first Israeli runner to win a medal at the championships and the third Israeli athlete to win a medal there; her result brought Israel’s cumulative medal total at the competition to four.[2] Later that year, at the European Championships in Munich, she won bronze in the 10,000 meters in 30:46.37, improving her Israeli record by almost 30 seconds.[9] Turkey’s Yasemin Can and Britain’s Eilish McColgan finished ahead of her.[9]

Salpeter also finished second in the 2022 New York City Marathon, recording 2:23:30, seven seconds behind Sharon Lokedi.[1] She described herself as “halfway happy,” saying that she believed she could win but had arrived with only three weeks of training after an injury and a difficult period of physical and mental preparation.[1] In 2023, she finished second in the 10-kilometer road race held as part of the Tel Aviv Marathon events, running 31:20.[10] She led for eight kilometers before Ethiopia’s Mägert Mergai passed her on a course tailored for an attempt at the women’s road 10-kilometer world record.[10]

At the Paris 2024 Olympic marathon, Salpeter moved into first place at 25 kilometers before dropping back later in the race.[4] She completed the course in 2:26:08 and was initially placed ninth, then the best finish by an Israeli in an Olympic marathon.[4] Afterward, she said that an injury had nearly led her to withdraw in the weeks before the Games, but that she continued despite leg pain and was happy to finish.[4] In October 2026, the International Olympic Committee approved a revised result following World Athletics’ request after Romanian runner Delvine Relin Meringor was disqualified for a doping violation.[5] Meringor’s results from October 2022 onward were annulled, and Salpeter’s official Paris placing was upgraded to eighth.[5]

In January 2025, Salpeter returned to the marathon in Osaka, her first full marathon since Paris.[11] She finished fourth in 2:24:03 and achieved the qualifying standard for the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo.[11] At the European Road Running Championships in Belgium that April, she won marathon bronze in 2:28:01.[12] Israeli teammate Maor Tiyouri recorded the same time, with a photo finish separating Salpeter in third from Tiyouri in fourth.[12] Salpeter said she had not felt well in the preceding weeks and regarded reaching the finish with a bronze medal as an excellent achievement.[12] Israel’s women’s team won silver behind Spain, with a combined time of 7:40:18.[12][13]

Salpeter’s 2018 European 10,000-meter title established a milestone for Israeli women’s athletics, followed by the first World Athletics Championships medal won by an Israeli runner in 2022.[6][2] Her achievements span both track and road running, including Israeli records she set across distances from 1,500 meters through the marathon and a course-record victory in Tokyo.[3][7]

Her Olympic career also produced Israel’s best marathon finish, initially ninth in Paris and subsequently revised to eighth.[4][5] Alongside her individual medals, her photo-finish bronze at the 2025 European Road Running Championships formed part of an Israeli women’s team silver-medal performance.[12][13]