On Running Signs Kenya's Doris Lemngole to Professional Contract After NIL Deal
Doris Lemngole | Image courtesy On
On has signed Kenyan distance runner Doris Lemngole to a professional contract, converting an NIL partnership built during her time at the University of Alabama into a full athlete sponsorship as she turns professional. This locks in one of collegiate running's most decorated recent graduates before the Diamond League and World Championships results could drive her price further into the open market.
University Career
Lemngole spent her university career at Alabama rewriting the NCAA record book. She won back-to-back NCAA Cross Country Championship titles in 2024 and 2025, the second of which produced the fastest winning time in NCAA XC history at 18:25.4 over 6,000 metres. On the track, she added the 2025 NCAA Indoor 5000m title and consecutive NCAA Outdoor 3000m Steeplechase Championships in 2024 and 2025, the latter run in a univeristy record of 8:58.15. The USTFCCCA named her Lance Harter Collegiate National Athlete of the Year, and in December 2025 she won The Bowerman, university track and field's top individual honour, becoming the first Alabama athlete and the first Kenyan to receive it.
Diamond League & World Athletics Championships
She had already tested herself against professionals before her eligibility ran out. Lemngole won her Diamond League debut in the 3000m steeplechase at Athletissima in Lausanne in wet conditions, then represented Kenya at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, finishing fifth in a deep steeplechase field.
"Doris has been a spectacular ambassador for On, and her transition to our professional roster is a proud moment for the brand," said Niklas Buehner, Head of Athletics at On. Buehner pointed to her run through the Diamond League and Tokyo as the deciding factor, calling the jump to a full contract "a natural decision."
Lemngole framed the signing as the payoff of a relationship that started before she had any leverage to negotiate one. "Signing with On as an NIL athlete was more than just a partnership; it was the beginning of a journey that I will always be grateful for," she said. Of turning professional, she added simply: "This is only the beginning."
Doris Lemngole | Image courtesy On
On already carries Hellen Obiri, the two-time world marathon champion, as the most prominent Kenyan name on its OAC Global roster, and the brand has spent the past several years building a case for itself among East African distance runners against Nike, Adidas and Puma, all of whom sponsor rival training camps and athletes in the region. Lemngole came into that competition through a different door: the NCAA.
Name, Image and Likeness (NIL)
NIL rules gave On a way to sign her early, while she was still a student and years before her market rate would reflect a Bowerman award, an NCAA record book and a Diamond League win in the same season. That NIL deal has now converted directly into a professional contract, without an open bidding period in between. For a brand competing against big marketing budgets in East Africa, getting to a Kenyan athlete through an American university rather than after she has already podiumed at a World Championships is the more affordable route to the same name. Other brands watching Kenyan talent move through the NCAA now have a template for how early that relationship needs to start, and On has shown that a partnership signed while an athlete is still a student can be enough to keep her once she is not.
