- By Celestine Karoney
- BBC Sport Africa, Nairobi
Image supply, Getty Images
Kelvin Kiptum broke Eliud Kipchoge’s world record in Chicago final October
The males’s marathon world record holder, Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum, 24, has died in a road accident in his residence nation.
He was killed alongside his coach, Rwanda’s Gervais Hakizimana, in a automobile on a road in western Kenya on Sunday.
Kiptum made a breakthrough in 2023 as a rival to compatriot Eliud Kipchoge – one of many best marathon runners.
And it was in Chicago final October that Kiptum bettered Kipchoge’s achievement, clocking the 26.2 miles (42km) in two hours and 35 seconds.
The two athletes had been named in Kenya’s provisional marathon group for the Paris Olympics later this 12 months.
The road accident occurred at about 23:00 native time (20:00 GMT) on Sunday, police had been quoted as saying by the AFP information company.
Giving additional particulars of the crash, police mentioned Kiptum was the motive force, and the car “lost control and rolled, killing the two on the spot”.
A spokesman quoted by AFP added that the third passenger – who was feminine – had been injured and “rushed to hospital”.
Just final week, his group introduced that he would try to run the gap in beneath two hours on the Rotterdam marathon – a feat that has by no means been achieved in open competitors.
The rise to fame for the father-of-two had been fast – he solely ran his first full marathon in 2022.
He made an immediate impression over the gap as he ran the then fourth quickest time on record (2:01:53) to win the Valencia Marathon earlier than setting a course record of 2:01:25 on the London Marathon in April 2023.
Six months later, in simply his third marathon, Kiptum took 34 seconds off the world record time in Chicago in his closing race.
He had already honed a definite tactical method that noticed him run with the pack for 30kms earlier than upping the tempo and going out on his personal for the rest of the race.
Kiptum competed in his first main competitors in 2018 operating in borrowed sneakers as a result of he couldn’t afford a pair of his personal.
He was amongst a brand new crop of Kenyan athletes who started their careers on the road, breaking away from the previous custom of athletes beginning on the monitor earlier than switching to longer distances.
Kiptum advised the BBC final 12 months that his uncommon alternative was merely decided by an absence of assets.
“I had no money to travel to track sessions,” he defined.
His coach, Hakizimana, 36, was a retired Rwandese runner. Last 12 months, he spent months serving to Kiptum goal the world record.
Their relationship as coach and athlete started in 2018, however the pair first met when the world record holder was a lot youthful.
“I knew him when he was a little boy, herding livestock barefooted,” Hakizimana recalled final 12 months. “It was in 2009, I used to be coaching close to his father’s farm, he’d come kicking at my heels and I’d chase him away.
“Now, I’m grateful to him for his achievement.”