A month after his death, the marathon world mourns the absence of Kelvin Kiptum.
Kiptum was 24 years old and we still don’t know what exactly happened: how is it possible that that Toyota Premio he was driving near Eldoret left the road, hit a tree and ended up in a ditch, ending the sporting career of a decisive marathoner According to many, the best in history?
(His technician, Gervais Hakizimana, had died along with him; a third passenger, Sharon Kosgei, suffered serious injuries.)
The positions are unanimous.
–I have never seen a better marathon runner than Kiptum. I have never seen an athlete compete in three marathons, win all three and go under 2h02m in all of them and even break the world record (those 2h00m35s that he recorded in the fall, in Boston, before the official 2h) – he told us on Saturday George Hirsch (89).
(Hirsch is co-founder of the New York Marathon, author this Sunday of the starting signal for the Barcelona Marathon).
“I carry Kiptum in my heart,” Abraham Tadesse (41), a Swiss of Eritrean origin, told us yesterday.
He spoke as soon as he crossed the finish line, champion this time in 2h05m01s, the race record:
–That episode affected me deeply. On that day I was in Kenya, focused. I attended his funeral, I think about him a lot.
(…)
In reality, Abraham Tadesse (of the OAC team, On Athletics Club) is not and will not be Kiptum: his athletic career connects him more with Eliud Kipchoge.
Kipchoge is a living legend of the marathon, and also someone who has been limping lately, that is how hard the life of an athlete who is around forty years old is (Kipchoge is 39).
Kipchoge is weak, tenth a week ago in the Tokyo marathon, but Tadesse, yesterday’s champion at 41, is growing, determined as he is to reach the Olympic marathon in Paris, next summer, where Kipchoge will be, where he will not be, what sadness, Kiptum.
Tadesse reaches the finish line of the Arc de Triomf in 2h05m01s, breaks by five seconds the Barcelona record that Baraini Mariu Kimutai had held since last year, and then extends red on blue: his adopted Swiss flag, with the white star in the center , on the finish mat.
And bless your existence, past, present and future.
Well, those first years in Zurich are far away, two decades have already passed, where he had arrived from his native Eritrea: he had been a war refugee, a scared teenager in a country whose culture he barely understood.
–It was difficult for me to integrate, of course –he says–. I didn’t understand the language, hardly anyone spoke to me in English (I had ended up in the German canton). The culture, the food… everything was different. Except the mountains.
The mountains rescued him.
His passion for running around in the woods saved him, as well as his passion for pushing himself in tartan: he does not forget his sessions at the altitude of Saint Moritz, the CAR of the Swiss, the CAR of central Europe.
Everything was directed this Sunday by Tadesse
He had always marched one step behind the three hares that had led the group until the 1h02m46s of the half marathon, a bit slow, before then accelerating, already from km 30, to correct the disadvantage, melting Collins Kipkurui, the the only one who already accompanied him, and appear at the Arc de Triomf in a majestic style, visualizing the end of his sporting career (he was talking about it on Friday) but without forgetting his date with Kipchoge in Paris.
