In recent times, misfortune and success are grotesquely combined in Kenyan athletics: in the same way that its successes in long-distance and middle-distance events multiply, the misfortunes of its runners are lamented, many of them burdened by the stigma. of doping; others, due to unexpected deaths.
The Kenyan press tonight reported the death of Kelvin Kiptum (24), plusmark world marathon champion, when he was driving his Toyota Premio on the road linking Eldoret and Kaptagat.
As announced before anyone else by the Kenyan Standard News, Kiptum has lost his life along with his coach, the Rwandan Gervais Hakizimana, in news that was later confirmed by the athlete’s family. A third person was traveling on board the car, Sharon Kosgei, a woman who suffered serious injuries.
According to police sources, Kiptum lost control of the car, which hit a tree and plunged into a ditch sixty meters ahead.
Kiptum, the man called to break the two-hour barrier in the marathon, had multiplied in just over a year. Between December 2022 and October 2023, he had won the Valencia, London and Chicago marathons, always recording extraordinary times, until reaching 2h00m35s, in October in Chicago, to overtake Eliud Kipchoge as the fastest marathoner in history. .
Such a festival of resources had made him a benchmark of contemporary athletics and the main candidate to break the two-hour barrier in an official marathon (a milestone that until now only Kipchoge has achieved, although in an unofficial marathon: he had done it in his Ineos project in Vienna’s Prater Park, in autumn 2019, when he signed 1h59m40s).
Kiptum’s death has left the athletics community baffled, one that was fascinated by the athlete’s exploits, as much as it was fascinated by the exploits of another talent from the Kenyan background, Samuel Wanjiru, Olympic marathon champion in Beijing 2008, He died three years later, in 2011, when he was still 24 (the same age as Kiptum) and at the peak of his sporting career.
Experts and wise men were rubbing their hands over the urgency of a duel next summer, at the Paris Games: Kiptum had decided to challenge Kipchoge, Olympic gold in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, determined as he is to become the first marathoner to chain three consecutive marathon titles.
The challenge had its morbid point.
The relationship between Kiptum and Kipchoge was not fluid: on the day he lost his world record, Kipchoge had not publicly congratulated Kiptum, a notable fact since Kipchoge has always been distinguished by his spiritual and diplomatic posture.
Death has surprised Kiptum on the heights of the Rift Valley, on the road between Eldoret and Kaptagat.
The place is near the village of Chepkorio, where he was born and trains (Geoffrey Kamworor, another fabulous Kenyan athlete, Kipchoge’s training partner, also comes from there), and whose red clay paths he frequently walked. During these last years, Kiptum had practiced endless sessions. Behind the scenes, it was said that he had managed to run 300 kilometers a week, more than any other professional marathoner.
Even though they were longer, their routines followed the classic methodology of Kenyan distance runners: two or three daily sessions, easy jogs at dawn, demanding track series on Tuesdays, long jogs on Thursday and changes of pace on Saturday.
