Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge won a gold medal in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics. He ran 42.195 kilometres in 2 hours and 8 minutes and 38 seconds. The second place runner was from the Netherlands, and third place was Belgium’s Bachir Abdi.
Kipchoge won the marathon for the second time at the Olympics. He also became the third double Olympic champion in that discipline. Kipchoge’s previous two gold medals were won by Ethiopian Abebe Bikila in 1960 and 1964 as well as by Waldemar Zerpinski of GDR in 1976 and 1980.
Biography of Eliud Kipchoge
Eliud Kipchoge was born in Kenya. He is the fourth child in his family. His mother was a teacher. Eliud Kipchoge graduated from high school and later met his future coach Patrick Sang, who had won an Olympic silver medal, and they have been training together since 2015.
Sang is a friend of Kipchoge. They were born in the same village 20 years apart. Sang also has three children and lives in Eldoret, Kenya, like Kipchoge.
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Kipchoge ran the marathon with 41 other runners. They were all strong and fast, and passed off drinks to Kipchoge on bikes. This meant that he did not stop at the refreshment points, which usually slows down runners.
Kipchoge cannot be helped by a pacer and drink during the race. IAAF does not allow this. The Vienna course is not part of the IAAF program. This does not mean that Kipchoge’s record is not important or that Monza has no records because of this rule.
In Berlin, people break the world record for running. In Vienna, people create history by running. It is like the first man on the moon.
People run ultramarathons because they want to do something big. They want to finish in the time that is given. They need a lot of speed, so they have to be very fast. At the 2019 London Marathon, there were no pacemakers which could help with this pace. Journalists asked if this race would improve attitudes towards high performance sport in our world with many doping scandals.
Kipchoge said that Vienna is like flowers. Weeds are not good for flowers and make people sad. Kipchoge thinks about the world and how a flower can make it better.
