"I'm excited to keep breaking barriers" - Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge

Eliud Kipchoge at the Tokyo Olympics
Eliud Kipchoge at the Tokyo Olympics

Eliud Kipchoge, Kenya’s double Olympic champion in men’s marathon, has announced that he's eyeing a record third marathon gold at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

By winning a second straight marathon gold at the rescheduled 2020 Tokyo Games, he has already established himself as the greatest marathoner of the modern era.

“Proud to reunite with Eliud Kipchoge in a new performance partnership to help him achieve his ambitious goals in running as he goes for a 3rd Olympic gold,” Kipchoge’s support team tweeted.

Kipchoge responded by saying he's excited to keep breaking barriers.

“To receive support from such a great entity in sports is a huge boost to myself and the team. We have had a wonderful relationship since we first started working together and have already changed the world together once. I am excited to keep breaking barriers,” Kipchoge said in his tweet.

Eliud Kipchoge's world record

Kipchoge holds the marathon world record of 2:01:39 set at the 2018 Berlin Marathon. At 37, the Kenyan isn’t getting any younger, but the champion follows a monk-like lifestyle in the high altitude of Kenya’s Rift Valley. He lives in Eldoret, while his training base is 30km away in Kaptagat.

Kipchoge is only the third man in Olympic history to win marathon gold twice (Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020) after Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila (Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964) and Waldemar Cierpinski of East Germany (Montreal 1976 and Moscow 1980).

Kipchoge became the first man to break the two-hour marathon barrier. In October 2019, he clocked one hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds in Vienna. But his super-human effort didn’t count as a world record because standard competition rules for pacing and fluids were not followed.

Kipchoge has also won 5000m bronze in the 2004 Athens Olympics and 5000m silver in 2008 Beijing Games.

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Edited by Sanjay Rajan