ILiud Kipchoge is an outstanding marathon runner of present and history. He dominated the field through Sapporo from first to last of 42,195m, which the Kenyan achieved in his second Olympic victory in 2:08:38 hours on Sunday night.
Even when one or two runners ran enthusiastically in front of him at the start of the race, it was clear that they were focusing themselves entirely on that. He was surrounded by a good fifty or sixty of the 96 runners from around the world who started, and his respect and admiration proved to be as dangerous to him as the heat and high humidity. Only a handful of people ran for 25 kilometers when they decided to have a race. Even Ethiopia’s world champion Lelisa Desisa, who was considered a challenger, gave up like 29 others.
“I think I have fulfilled the legacy,” Kipchoge said at the end. Like Abebe Bikila, the barefoot bodyguard of the Ethiopian emperor in 1964 and 1968, like Waldemar Sierpinski, after whom fathers and mothers in the GDR had to name their children, in 1976 and 1980, Kipchoge is now double Olympic champion in the supreme cross. -The discipline of country skiing. He said he wanted to inspire the next generation and billions in general. It is quite possible that he will achieve them, as he is much more than a titled athlete.
At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and 2008 in Beijing, he won bronze and silver in the 5000 meters race. Dropped by the Kenyan federation in 2012, he switched to the marathon. Of the fifteen marathons he has run since then, he has won thirteen; On his second, in 2013 in Berlin, it looked like he deliberately preferred his sponsor, Wilson Kipsang, and set a world record. Five years later, he himself improved the world record in Berlin to 2:01:39 hours – a feat so clearly that the New Züricher Zeitung compared it to a moon landing.
A year and a half ago, Kipchoge tried to reduce the (not officially recognized) best time for the marathon distance to under two hours at the Monza Formula 1 track. The fact that he missed the target by only 26 seconds showed it was possible. In May 2019 he repeated this lab test on a circuit at Prater in Vienna: 1:59:40 hours for 42.195 kilometers – the Mars mission, if you stick to the analogy.
At a time when cross-country skiing has become an everyday culture around the world and equipment manufacturers are exceeding billions, Kipchoge had already made himself an icon of his sport and a larger-than-life advertising medium. Now, apparently, instinctively, he has gotten the gold medal he was still missing. Star Trek? In Tokyo, Kipchoge proved why he has a status that turns contestants into fans and admirers. He runs longer and faster than anyone else. With his win, he suffered a surprise defeat as the eighth of the London Marathon last year, which was moved to the autumn and a park. He made sure that there was speculation about the imminent demise of the Iliad the Great, it was again rumored that although he gave his birth year as 1984, he was probably forty years old or older. “Marathons are like life,” said the master once again on Sunday: “There are pits and waves here. Life goes up and down. You have to focus and keep going.”
“Kipchoge is Kipchoge”
Kipchoge stood on stage with two training partners who had joined him and his trainer Patrick Song years earlier. The Kenyans ran over Cherono before the finish, waving Abdi Ngeye in a Netherlands shirt, and Bashir Abdi followed with wide gestures. The man in Belgian dress finished third behind Ngei. Both friends showed considerable national pride. “The Somali diaspora is strong,” said Ngei happily and caught four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah from England, Canada’s more than 5000m silver medalist Mohamed Ahmed and Ayad Lamdasem in fifth from England. Marathon in Spanish jersey, all of them are of Somali origin. In Africa, he and Ngi may have played football. He only found out running as a sport in his new home countries. and quickly understood the hierarchy during training in Kenya. “Kipchoge is Kipchoge,” said Abdi: “no one can live with him.”
