Eliud KipchogeEGH (born 5 November 1984) is a Kenyan long-distance runner who competes in the marathon and formerly specialized in the 5000 metres. Kipchoge is the 2016 and 2020 Olympic marathon champion, and was the world record holder in the marathon from 2018 to 2023,[3] until that record was broken by Kelvin Kiptum at the 2023 Chicago Marathon. Kipchoge has run 3 of the 10 fastest marathons in history.[4]
He switched to road running in 2012 and made the second-fastest half marathon debut ever, at 59:25. In his marathon debut, he won the 2013 Hamburg Marathon in a course record time. His first victory at a World Marathon Major came at the Chicago Marathon in 2014, and he went on to become series champion a record five times – for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022. He has won the London Marathon a record four times and also holds the record for most Berlin Marathon wins with five, his latest coming in September 2023. With 15 victories out of his 18 marathons, Kipchoge's only losses have been a second-place finish behind Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich at the 2013 Berlin Marathon, where Kipsang broke the world record, an eighth-place finish at the 2020 London Marathon and a sixth place in his debut at the Boston Marathon in 2023.[5][6][7] Kipchoge's last world record run broke by 30 seconds his own 2018 world record, which was in turn a 78-second improvement over the existing best, the greatest improvement in a marathon world record time since 1967.
On 12 October 2019, Kipchoge ran the marathon distance for the Ineos 1:59 Challenge in Vienna, achieving a time of 1:59:40.2, becoming the first person in recorded history to do a sub-two-hour marathon.[8] The run did not count as a new marathon record, as standard competition rules for pacing and fluids were not followed, and it was not an open event.[9][10][11]
Kipchoge was born on 5 November 1984 in Kapsisiywa, Nandi County, in Kenya. He graduated from the Kaptel Secondary School in Nandi County in 1999 but did not run seriously or as a profession then.[14][15] He ran three kilometres (2mi) to school on a daily basis.[16] Kipchoge was raised by a single mother (a teacher), and only knew his father from pictures. He is the youngest of four children. He met his trainer Patrick Sang (a former Olympic medalist in the steeplechase) in 2001 at the age of 16.[17]
Kipchoge's wife and three children live in Eldoret, Kenya.[18][19] He lives and trains in Kaptagat, 30km (19 miles) from Eldoret.[20] He is a devout Catholic.[21]
In July, he participated in the Golden League 2004 Roma Meeting. In the 5000m event, he dipped first among the starters with 12:46.53, which made him the sixth-fastest ever in the event.[24]
At the end of the year, Kipchoge won the San Silvestre Vallecana New Year's Eve 10km road race in a time of 26:54 minutes, which beat his own course record by 40 seconds. This time was also better than the 10K road world record at the time but was run on a downhill course.[26]
Kipchoge (third from the right) during the 5000m heat at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka. He won a silver medal in the final.
During the 2008 Olympics held in Beijing, China, Kipchoge won a silver medal in the 5000m event with a time of 13:02.80; although better than the previous Olympic record of 13:05.59, it was not enough to match Kenenisa Bekele's pace, who won the gold medal for this race.[28] On the circuit, he won the Great Yorkshire Run 10K and Campaccio Cross Country that year.
Kipchoge then entered the Carlsbad 5000 in California, United States. The Carlsbad 5km road race is the venue for the world's best times for a 5k road race for men and women, respectively. The fastest to cover the track was Sammy Kipketer in 2000, with 12:59.52 min.[30] Kipchoge made a world best attempt, and although he won the race, weather affected his chances, and he finished in 13:11, the fourth-fastest ever for the course up to that point in time.[31]
In the first athletics final of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, he attempted to win the 5000m Commonwealth title. Ugandan runner Moses Kipsiro held a slender lead over him in the race's final stages, and Kipchoge ended up in second place, taking the silver medal some seven-hundredths of a second behind.[32][33] He flew back to Europe immediately after to take part in the Belgrade Race through History the following day. His shoe fell off in the first kilometre, and, after putting it back on, he made up much ground on the field to eventually take second place two seconds behind Josphat Menjo.[34]
At the start of 2011, he won the short race at the Great Edinburgh Cross Country, ahead of Asbel Kiprop.[35] He attempted to retain his title at the Carlsbad 5000 in April but came a close second behind Dejen Gebremeskel.[36] In May he raced the 3000 metres (finished third) in Doha, with a time of 7:27.66 and ranked him as the 12th-fastest at the distance up to this point.[37] Kipchoge was chosen to represent Kenya at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics and reached the 5000m final for the fifth consecutive time, although he only managed seventh place on this occasion.
2012
Kipchoge returned to the Edinburgh Cross Country in 2012, but this time he finished third behind Asbel Kiprop and Britain's Jonathan Hay.[38] He was also third at the Carlsbad 5000 in March.[39] He attempted to gain a place on the 10,000m Olympic team at the Prefontaine Classic, but fell back in the late stages of the Kenyan trial race, finishing seventh.[40] A seventh-place finish in the Kenyan 5000m trial race meant he would not make a third consecutive Olympic team.[41]
He made his half marathon debut in the Lille Half Marathon.[42] The run was won by a new course record time of 59:05 (previously 59:36 by ilahun Regassa set in 2008) by Ezekiel Chebii (former pb 59:22), trailed by Bernard Koech 59:10, and Kipchoge earned a third place with 59:25. His time of 59:25 became the second fastest Half Marathon debut, only second to Moses Mosop's 59:20 in Milan in 2010.[43]
Wilson Kipsang (front) and Kipchoge (behind) running in the 2013 Berlin Marathon in which Kipsang set the world record with 2:03:23 and Kipchoge, racing in his second marathon, finished second, 42 seconds later.
2013
Kipchoge opened his 2013 season with a win at the Barcelona Half Marathon in a time of one hour and four seconds.[45] Making his marathon debut in April, he demonstrated a smooth transition to the longer distance by taking the Hamburg Marathon title with a run of 2:05:30 hours, beating the field by over two minutes and setting a new course record.[46] In August 2013, he won the Half Marathon of Klagenfurt in 1:01:02 minutes.[47]
Then, he raced in the 2013 Berlin Marathon and finished second in 2:04:05, the fifth-fastest time in history, in his second-ever marathon,[48] behind Wilson Kipsang, who set a new marathon world record with 2:03:23. Third place went to Geoffrey Kamworor of Kenya with 2:06:26.[6] This was the ninth world record set at the Berlin Marathon.[49]
On 2 February, Kipchoge participated in the Ras al-Khaimah Half Marathon. He placed sixth with a time of 1:00:50. The run was won by Mosinet Geremew (Ethiopia) in 1:00:05.[50] Kipchoge ran 2:04:42 to win the 2015 London Marathon in April. He also won the 2015 Berlin Marathon later in the year. His win and then-personal best time (2:04:00) occurred even though his shoes malfunctioned, causing his insoles to flap out of both shoes from 10km onward; rather than risk time lost from an adjustment, he finished the race with bloodied, blistered feet.[51]
2016
In April, Kipchoge won the 2016 London Marathon for the second consecutive year in a time of 2:03:05.[52] His performance broke the course record in London and became the second-fastest marathon time in history, missing Dennis Kimetto's world record by 8 seconds.[53]
Rio Olympic Games
As the prerace favourite, during the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, Kipchoge gained a gold medal in the marathon event.[54][55][56] On the last day of the Olympic Games on 21 August 2016, he won in a time of 2:08:44. The runner up was Feyisa Lilesa (Ethiopia) in 2:09:54 and the bronze medal went to Galen Rupp (USA), doing his second marathon, crossing the finish line in 2:10:05. When the halfway point after 21.0975km was reached, 37 men were within 10 seconds of the lead runner. The participants' field diminished to 3 lead runners shortly before 34km. Kipchoge made his final move on silver medal winner Lilesa around 36km into the race. He covered the first half of the race in 1:05:55 while doing the second half in 1:02:49, which amounts to a difference of more than 3 minutes, a negative split.[57][58] The winning gap between Kipchoge and Lilesa by 70 seconds was the largest victory margin since the 1972 Olympic marathon.[59] Kipchoge's winning time of 2:08:44 was, as of August 2021, his slowest marathon time. One hundred fifty-five runners started the race, the largest field in Olympic history; 140 of them finished the race.[60][61] With this win, Kipchoge became the second Kenyan male after Sammy Wanjiru in Beijing 2008 to win an Olympic marathon gold medal. At the same Olympics, the women's marathon was won by Jemima Sumgong, who became the first female Kenyan winner.[62][58]
On 20 November 2016, Kipchoge ran in the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon, winning the race, clocking a time of 59:44.[63]
On 6 May, Kipchoge, along with Zersenay Tadese (then world record holder in the half marathon) and Lelisa Desisa (2-time Boston Marathon winner), attempted the first sub-two-hour assisted marathon in the Nike Breaking2 project on the MonzaFormula 1 racetrack near Milan, Italy. All three runners ran a test 2 months before the attempt. The target time was 1 hour for a half Marathon. Kipchoge finished first in 59:17. The course was measured at 2400m per lap.[64] During the 2-hour attempt, the runners were paced by a lead car and 30 supporting pacers joining in stages (both considered illegal under IAAF rules).[65] The race started at 5:45h local time on the 2.4km track. Kipchoge finished in 2:00:25, while the other two had to slow and finished far behind.[66] The runners planned even 14:13 5k splits to break 2 hours. His 5k splits were: 14:14, 14:07, 14:13, 14:15, 14:14, 14:17, 14:17, 14:27, and 6:20 to finish.[67] The 5k split times from 25k and further would be world records: 25k in 1:11:03, 30k in 1:25:20, 35k in 1:39:37, 40k in 1:54:04.
On 24 September, he won the 2017 Berlin Marathon in a time of 2:03:32.[68] In rainy conditions, he finished 14 seconds ahead of Guye Adola who ran his first marathon, and set the fastest marathon debut ever.[69] Former marathon world record holder Wilson Kipsang and 2016 winner Kenenisa Bekele failed to finish.[70][71]
Eliud Kipchoge (L) and his three pacers (R) about 30 minutes into the run en route to the marathon world record in 2018. He is shown a few seconds before crossing the river Spree.
"A 2:01:39 in the Marathon is like a Mars landing for Space travel."
"Whatever happens, this will surely go down as Kipchoge's crowning glory, his marathon opus. It would be no surprise if his record stood for a generation unless, of course, he himself has other ideas."
"In an astonishing performance at the 2018 BMW Berlin Marathon, Kipchoge took marathoning into a new stratosphere by clocking 2:01:39– the first man ever under 2:02, and a full 78 seconds faster than Dennis Kimetto's four-year-old world record.
It was a performance so far superior to anything we've seen before that comparing it to another marathon feels inadequate. This was Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in basketball, Usain Bolt's 9.58 in the 100-meter dash.
Kipchoge's splits– 1:01:06 for the first half, a ridiculous 1:00:33 for his second half– sound made up. But they were real, and they were spectacular."
On 16 September, Kipchoge won the 2018 Berlin Marathon in a time of 2:01:39, breaking the previous world record by 1 minute and 18 seconds (2:02:57 set by fellow countryman Dennis Kimetto at the Berlin Marathon in 2014). It was the greatest improvement in a marathon world record time since 1967.[80] He finished 4:43 min ahead of second-placed fellow Kenyan Amos Kipruto. The world record holder from 2013, Wilson Kipsang of Kenya, came in third at 2:06:48.[81][82] It was the 11th world record set at the Berlin Marathon.[49]
Kipchoge won the 2019 London Marathon in a time of 2:02:37, the second fastest marathon ever at that time, behind his 2018 Berlin Marathon win.[85] He became the first man to win the event four times and set a new course record, beating his own 2016 London Marathon best by 28 seconds.[86] The lead runner passed the half marathon mark in 1:01:37.[87]Mosinet Geremew (Ethiopia) finished as the runner up in 2:02:55 and Mule Wasihun (Ethiopia) came in third place in 2:03:16.[5] The British runner Mo Farah, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and a pre-race favourite, finished 5th.[88]
In May 2019, a few days after his London Marathon win, Kipchoge announced another take on the sub-two-hour marathon, named the Ineos 1:59 Challenge. On 12 October 2019 in Vienna's Prater park, he ran 4.4 laps of the Hauptallee in 1:59:40, becoming the first person in recorded history to break the two-hour barrier over a marathon distance.[89][90][91]
The effort did not count as a new world record under IAAF rules due to the setup of the challenge. Specifically, it was not an open event; Kipchoge was handed fluids by his support team throughout; the run featured a pace car and included rotating teams of other runners pacing Kipchoge in a formation designed to reduce wind resistance and maximise efficiency.[92][93] The achievement was recognised by Guinness World Records with the titles 'Fastest marathon distance (male)' and 'First marathon distance run under two hours'.[94][95]
2020
Kipchoge placed 8th in the 2020 London Marathon in October with a time of 2:06:49, the lowest finish of his marathoning career.[7]
2021
In preparation for the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, he won the NN Mission Marathon, which was held at Enschede Airport Twente in the Netherlands on 18 April 2021 in a time of 2:04:30. Jonathan Korir finished as the runner up with a personal best of 2:06:40.[96]
Kipchoge successfully defended his title from the Rio Olympics by winning the gold medal in the men's marathon at the Tokyo Games in a time of 2:08:38, becoming only the third person to successfully defend their gold medal in the men's marathon, after Abebe Bikila in 1960 and 1964, and Waldemar Cierpinski in 1976 and 1980.[97] He was the favourite to win and attacked around the 30km mark, looking back only once afterwards. He won by 80 seconds, the largest margin in 49 years.[98] The silver medal went to Abdi Nageeye (Netherlands), while Bashir Abdi (Belgium) came in third for a bronze medal with 2:10:00. Kipchoge was the oldest Olympic marathon winner since Carlos Lopes won in 1984 at the age of 37. The run was staged 500 miles north of Tokyo in Sapporo, with 106 runners participating.[99] A documentary on the Ineos 1:59 Challenge, titled Kipchoge: The Last Milestone, was released digitally on-demand on 24 August 2021.
2022
On 20 January, Kipchoge announced his desire to win all six World Marathon Majors (he had already won three, the London, Berlin, and Chicago marathons by that time). This was followed up by an announcement on 18 February that he would be participating in the 2021 Tokyo Marathon (which took place on 6 March 2022 due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2021) and that the majority of his recent training has been dedicated towards this goal.[100] He won the Tokyo Marathon with a time of 2:02:40 – a course and all-comers' record. Amos Kipruto of Kenya finished second with a personal best of 2:03:13, and Tamirat Tola from Ethiopia came in third in a time of 2:04:14.[101]
2022 Berlin and second world marathon record
Kipchoge (back center) about 14.5km (9.0mi) into the race, behind pacemakers (in striped gear).
On 25 September, Kipchoge won the Berlin Marathon decisively in a time of 2:01:09, beating by 30 seconds his own previous world record, which he set on the same course in 2018. With his fourth victory in Berlin, he equalled the record achievement of Haile Gebrselassie. He finished 4:49 min ahead of second-placed compatriot Mark Korir while Ethiopia's Tadu Abate took third place with a time of 2:06:28. Kipchoge achieved halfway in 59:51 which, being at the time, the fastest split in marathon history, would have been a world record in the standalone half-marathon in 1993, and was only 26 seconds off his best in that distance. He slowed down later with second half in 61:18.[102][103][104][105] It was the eighth time in a row that men's record was set in Berlin and 12th record there overall.[106][49]
Split times Marathon world record / Breaking2 / INEOS 1:59 Challenge
At the 2023 Boston Marathon, Kipchoge aimed to win his fifth of the six major marathons. However, after missing his water bottle and due to a left leg problem,[107][108] the 38-year-old was unable to stay with the lead group on a hilly section after the 30km mark. He suffered the third defeat of his marathon career, finishing sixth with a time of 2:09:23. Evans Chebet was the winner in 2:05:54, successfully defending his title.[109] At the 2023 Berlin Marathon, his first race since the Boston defeat, he won the race for a record fifth time, finishing at 2:02:42. He ran alone from 32 kilometers (20 miles) onward after Ethiopia's Derseh Kindie dropped away, but fell short of breaking his own world record he set the previous year. With the victory, Kipchoge became the first man in history to win the Berlin Marathon five times, having already won in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022.
Kipchoge failed to finish the marathon for the first time in his career when defending his gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, dropping out of the race after around 30km citing discomfort around his waist. He later told reporters that he would not compete at another Olympic Games. "You will see me in a different way, maybe giving people motivation, but I will not run," he said when asked about the prospects of competing in Los Angeles in 2028. "I need to go back, sit down, try to figure my 21 years of running at high level. I need to evolve and feature in other things," he added.[110] Despite the downfall, President William Ruto still recognized Kipchoge as a legend. "I know how people were disappointed. Many people I know made a lot of comments, 'How could Eliud not finish?' But Eliud we celebrate you. You have held our flag high," Ruto said.
Becomes third man to defend Olympic marathon title, after Abebe Bikila and Waldemar Cierpinski. Largest margin of victory (80 seconds) in Olympics since 1972.
(*) Officially billed as the 2021 Tokyo Marathon, the race took place on 6 March 2022 after the 2021 edition was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence of this postponement, the 2022 Tokyo Marathon was cancelled.
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