In April 2012, Kipyego won the 5000 m at the Payton Jordan Invitational with a time of 14:43:11. A 3000 m best of 8:35.89 minutes came at the Prefontaine Classic, where she was second place. She guaranteed Olympic participation by coming third at the Kenyan 10,000 m trial event in Nairobi. She competed in both the 5000 m and the 10000 m, winning the silver medal in the 10000 m and narrowly missing out on a medal in the 5000 m, finishing less than a second behind bronze medalist Tirunesh Dibaba.