Marathon world record holder Kelvin Kiptum, the young Kenyan who’s taken the long-distance running world by storm in recent years, has died, according to multiple overseas reports. He was only 24.
Kiptum and his coach, Rwanda’s Gervais Hakizimana, reportedly died in a traffic accident on Monday (AEDT).
After twice clocking two hours and one minute for the marathon, in 2022 and 2023, Kiptum shattered Kenyan icon Eliud Kipchoge’s world record by smashing the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 2:00:35. Kipchoge’s world record was 2:01.09.
Kiptum’s breathtaking rise to marathon superstardom, and Kipchoge’s sustained brilliance in his late 30s, had set up a highly anticipated Paris Olympics marathon.
Kiptum, born in Kenya’s Keiyo District in 1999, had established himself as the man most likely to become the first athlete to officially crack the two-hour mark. Kipchoge ran 1:59.40 in Vienna in 2019, but a raft of factors, including a rotating cast of pacemakers and laser lights beaming from a car ahead, meant his time didn’t count as a world record.
MORE TO COME.