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After competing in middle distances at the Olympic and World Championships level for Kenya, Viola Cheptoo made her marathon debut in New York in 2021. She finished as the runner-up at the TCS New York City Marathon in 2:22:44 and then went on to place sixth in Boston. She returned to New York last fall to finish fifth.

Cheptoo has dedicated her marathon runs to her late friend, world champion Agnes Tirop, who was found stabbed to death at her home in Kenya in October 2021. Since her death, Cheptoo and a collective of Kenyan women runners have come together to advocate against gender-based violence through their organization Tirop’s Angels.

Cheptoo grew up in Kenya’s Nandi County close to the town of Kapsabet and is the youngest of 10 siblings in a family of accomplished runners that includes five-time Olympian and five-time world champion Bernard Lagat. From a young age she loved playing basketball, but she came to the U.S. after graduating high school on a running scholarship at Central Arizona Junior College. After vaulting herself up the junior college rankings, she transferred to Florida State University, where she ran collegiately and pursued a double degree in sociology and nursing.