Career
His personal best is 8:14.75 minutes, set in 2015. Koech first began competing at national level in the steeplechase in 2012, running at the national junior championships. He also acted as pacemaker at the Herculis meeting that year.
His best performance of the year was a personal best of 8:16.96 minutes at the DN Galan, where he placed sixth – this time ranked him twentieth in the world for the event that season.
Koech switched his international eligibility to Bahrain in September 2013. In the 2014 season he competed extensively on the track and field circuit.
On the 2014 IAAF Diamond League circuit he was tenth at the Athletissima meeting and 13th at the Herculis meeting. As the second highest ranked Asian runner, after Abubaker Ali Kamal of Qatar (another Kenyan emigrant), he was selected to represent the region at the 2014 IAAF Continental Cup, where he placed fifth.
At the 2015 Arab Athletics Championships, held in Bahrain, he missed out on a steeplechase medal behind African opposition, taking fourth.
A month later at the IAAF World Challenge Beijing he gave a stronger performance with a personal best of 8:14.75 minutes for third place. His first major title followed shortly after at the 2015 Asian Athletics Championships where he was the steeplechase gold medallist, succeeding his compatriot and fellow former Kenyan Tareq Mubarak Taher.