Chemtai was born in Kenya, a member of the tribe of Pokot of the Kalenjin, and grew up in a small village without electricity or running water in West Pokot County in western Kenya. She came to Israel in 2008, as a nanny for the children of Kenya's Ambassador to Israel living in Herzliya. Chemtai met Israeli running coach Dan Salpeter in 2011, and the two fell in love, and married in 2014. The couple's son, Roy, was born in December 2014. The family lived in moshavYanuv, in central Israel, and now lives in Shoham in central Israel. Chemtai was granted Israeli citizenship in March 2016, eight years after she began living in Israel, a few days before the cut-off to qualify for the 2016 Olympics.
Running career
Her husband, an Israeli former middle-distance and mountain runner, is also her coach. In her youth she ran shorter distances, and she began running the marathon only after 2014. Her club is Maccabi Tel Aviv.
2016-17
Chemtai came in first among the women in the 2016 Tel Aviv Marathon in 2:40:16, almost five minutes below the qualification time for the 2016 Olympics. Chemtai competed for Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the marathon. By the 30th kilometer, her time put her in the top half of the runners, ranking her approximately 90th. She left the race at the 33rd kilometer. She explained on Facebook: “Unfortunately, I was forced to stop by a shoulder problem. As you all know, I’m still nursing my 20-month-old son. During my training in Kenya, I tried to stop, but it caused me pain and a shoulder problem due to running with breasts full of milk. This limited me in the European championships in Amsterdam and happened again today. I promise to attain respectable achievements in the future and am going forward with head held high.” In the 2017 London World Championship Marathon, she ran a 2:40, coming in 41st.
2018-20
In May 2018 she won the 2018 European 10,000m Cup in London, with a time of 31:33.03, a new Israeli national record. In July 2018 she won the 1500 m at the Israeli National Championships with a time of 4:11.69. On August 8, 2018, Chemtai won the 10,000 meters2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin with a time of 31:43.29. She became the first Israeli athlete to win a gold medal at the championships. On August 12, 2018, Chemtai miscounted the number of laps in a race and stopped a lap early by mistake in the final of the 5,000 meters 2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin in which she had been in close second place, depriving her of a medal. On November 25, 2018, she won the Florence Marathon, setting an Israeli national record and course record of 2:24:17. It was only her fifth marathon. As of November 2018 she also held Israeli national records for 1,500, 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 meters, as well as the half marathon. In March 2019, she won the Roma-Ostia Half Marathon in Rome, Italy, with a time of 1:06:40. In April 2019 she came in second in the Sportisimo Prague Half Marathon in Prague, with a time of 1:06:09. On May 5, 2019, she won the Prague Marathon, with a course record 2:19:46 time, clocking the 24th-best time for a woman in that distance in history, the third-best European time ever, and a new Israeli national record. In July 2019 she won a silver medal in the 2019 European 10,000m Cup in London, with an Israeli national record of 31:15.78. In September 2019, she broke the European record in 10K by 17 seconds, with a time of 30:05, which is the second-best time in history On September 28, she ran the women's marathon at the IAAF World Championships in Doha. In March 2020, Chemtai won the women's event at the Tokyo marathon with a time of 2:17:45, setting a new record in the women's race. She will represent Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
