Nephat Kinyanjui

Nephat Ngotho Kinyanjui (born 30 June 1977 in Miharati, Central Province) is a Kenyan long-distance runner who competes in road running events including the marathon. He is a three-time champion at the Nagano Olympic Commemorative Marathon and has also won marathons in Nashville, Dallas, and Beijing. He set his personal best of 2:08:09 hours at the latter race.

He was trained by two-time New York City Marathon champion John Kagwe and is a training partner with 2008 Olympic champion Samuel Wanjiru.

Kinyanjui began competing internationally in 2002, mainly in American road races. He won the Buffalo 4-Mile Chase and made his marathon debut at the Dallas White Rock Marathon, which he won in a time of 2:16:27 hours. He made his second appearance over the distance at the Country Music Marathon, setting a personal record of 2:15:52, although he was the runner-up on this occasion. He was also second at the Fairfield Half Marathon but managed only ninth at the Virginia Beach Half Marathon. Kinyanjui returned to Dallas and improved his best further to 2:14:35 hours, but was beaten to the title by half a minute by fellow Kenyan Elly Rono.

His 2005 season saw further improvements as he won the Country Music Marathon. He was top-three at the Utica Boilermaker in July and then won the America's Finest City Half Marathon in San Diego the following month. He branched out beyond his US base for the first time that year and was 13th at the Berlin Marathon, but he still ran a best time of 2:12:48 in the top-level race. He began to focus on East Asian races from 2006 onwards. In a closely contested race, he defeated Grigoriy Andreyev by one second at the Nagano Olympic Commemorative Marathon to record a personal record time of 2:11:18.

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