Kibiwot made his international debut at the 2013 African Youth Athletics Championships, taking fifth in the 2000 m steeplechase event.

[1] He raised his profile in 2015 first by winning the Kenyan junior trials and the gold medal at the 2015 African Junior Athletics Championships, seeing off Ethiopia's reigning Youth Olympic champion Wogene Sebisibe Sidamo in Addis Ababa.

[2][3] Kibiwot capped that season with a personal best of 8:22.10 at the London Diamond League meet and ranked as the second-fastest under-20 athlete that year behind another Kenyan, Nicholas Kiptanui Bett.

That year he was prominent on the 2016 Diamond League, starting with a personal best of 8:09.25 to place third in Doha.

[9] He was selected for the 2016 African Championships in Athletics, where he won his first major medal – a bronze behind Ethiopia's Chala Beyo and Tolosa Nurgi.