On announced two-time 5000m world champion and 2021 Olympic silver medalist Hellen Obiri has signed a professional contract with the brand, is shifting her focus to road racing, and will eventually join the On Athletics Club to train under coach Dathan Ritzenhein in Boulder, Colo.

“I am eager to train with the team and move with my family to the US,” Obiri said in a press release. “I have never trained for so long outside Kenya, so it will be a challenge but something new, and it’s good to try new things. I am so happy to join On and work with the team.”

LetsRun.com’s Jonathan Gault reports Obiri will be coached by her agent Ricky Simms as visa logistics for her move to the United States get sorted out before she joins OAC.

✍️ 👟OFFICIAL: @on_running announces two-time 5000m world champion and 2021 Olympic silver medalist @hellen_obiri will move to Boulder to train under @djritzenhein with the On Athletics Club.#goodforthesport pic.twitter.com/GXI5zhL0Ch

— CITIUS MAG (@CitiusMag) January 26, 2022

The company says Obiri closed out her track career with the 2021 Diamond League final in Zurich, where she finished second in the 5,000m to Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba. At 32 years old, Obiri has personal bests of 2:00.54 for 800 meters, 3:57.05 for 1,500m; 4:16.15 for the mile; 8:20.68 for 3,000m, 14:18.37 for 5,000m (which is also the Kenyan national record) and 30:24.27 for 10,000 meters. She sits at No. 9 on the all-time 5,000 meter list.

She has won the last two 5,000m world championship titles and has a bye for this summer’s world championships in Eugene, Oregon. She also earned silver medals in the 5,000 meters at the Rio and Tokyo Olympics.

Ritzenhein told CITIUS MAG that it is “not set in stone” that Obiri is totally done on the track and her team is leaving the option open to still compete on the track with the bigger picture plan targeting a fall marathon in 2022.

Last year, she made her half marathon debut with a third place finish at the Istanbul Half Marathon in 1:04:51. She also ran 1:07:42 at the Great North Run in Newcastle, England in September.

“As a brand, we’ve been excited about our continued growth on the professional side with OAC on the track,” Ritzenhein says. “We also have athletes who we eventually see to be marathoners as well. When the opportunity came along that Hellen might be looking to make a change, it was super exciting to us as a brand. We wanted to have a real marquee marathoner. I think she’s a super tough competitor. We wanted to see someone who can step into that role and we can hopefully play an important role to help her take that same success she had on the track to the roads.”

Obiri donned an On kit for the first time this month when she won the 2022 World Athletics Cross Country Tour Silver event in Northern Ireland.

The On Athletics Club’s women’s roster includes U.S. Olympian Alicia Monson, Leah Falland, Sage Hurta, Polish Olympian Alicja Konieczek and Carmela Cardama Báez. Obiri is the first African star to join the team.

“We see ourselves as a really international brand and team,” Ritzenhein says. “Half of our team now is American and the other half is a pretty diverse group of nations as members of the team. We really want to be able to utilize everyone’s strengths to have a global imprint. Having someone from Africa makes a lot of sense to continue to diversify not only the brand but the team as well. It’s something I really like on our team because we get all these cultural experiences. We get a lot of people through the NCAA but those athletes have very distinct backgrounds. It’s something that’s cool and different about our team. Bringing in someone like Hellen from somewhere we don’t already have someone from on the roster is exciting to me. She’s excited about the change and coming to the U.S. She’s already accomplished so much but it’s almost like a new endeavor. Like I said before, it’s not set in stone for what happens this year but the focus really going forward into the marathon is super exciting. We’re bringing in a new person, from a new era into a new event and that’s what’s really exciting to me.”

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Photo courtesy of On Inc.