In the running world, no marathon is created equal, says Ryan Fan, a special needs educator and marathon runner. By that analogy, it can be argued no marathon runner is created equal either.
If so, Kelvin Kiptum, the first to finish a 26-mile race in under 2 hours 1 minute, stands out among the one million runners who turn out for the world’s marathons each year. He’s embedded in our psyche as well for accomplishing what few athletes managed in an incredibly short life.
At the least, the Kenyan’s astonishing three-marathon spell during a period of little over 10 months in 2022 and 2023 won’t be rivaled. This includes recording the fastest debut marathon in history, then going even quicker to triumph on the streets of London, before usurping the great Eliud Kipchoge as the marathon world record holder. And all before the fatal road accident that took him on Feb. 11, 2024, before he even turned 25.
“The Kiptum story is one that remains forever unfinished; barely even started, in fact,” Ben Bloom wrote in a tribute that appeared on The Independent. “Aged 24 and a father of two young children, the sporting world had only just begun to know him. Now, awfully, it never will.”
The tribute tracks Kimptum’s rise from an athletic nobody to the world’s greatest 26-miler in the shortest time ever. The story begins in the 2020 Covid summer, when the Brussels Diamond League, in a hunt to find sporting meaning during the strange supporter absence of the pandemic, opted to stage a rare assault on the one-hour world record.
Although 13 men lined up on the King Baudouin Stadium startline, the race was little more than a one-man time trial geared solely around Britain’s four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah. Everyone else was there to aid his cause.
Among the faceless dozen was Kiptum. At that point in his career, the Kenyan’s international pedigree was almost non-existent. A year earlier, he had led for some time at the Rotterdam Marathon, although the word ‘Pace’ located where his name would otherwise have been written on his bib betrayed his lowly status as a bit-part in a bigger picture.
Just as he had on that day, Kiptum failed to finish the one-hour run in the Belgian capital, managing to stick to Farah’s heel for all of 18 minutes before the pace became too tough and he soon dropped out. No one watching would have gleaned the slightest inkling of what he might become.
Kiptum made international headlines in October 2023 when he won the Chicago marathon in 2 hours 35 seconds, making him the first man to run an official race in under 2 hours 1 minute, and overtaking fellow Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge’s record.
Humble Beginning to End
The brutal nature of long-distance road-running means athletes are not meant to go about things the way Kiptum did during his all-too-brief career. There is a set routine to follow that begins over steadily lengthening distances on the track before moving onto the roads, learning the craft and navigating a route to the top. Kiptum did none of that.
It was, he explained, purely circumstantial. Born into a farming family in Chepkorio, Kiptum grew up surrounded by running nobility in Kenya’s Rift Valley, home to so many distance legends over the years.
He described realizing his own running talent while herding the family’s cattle near Kaptagat Forest, but a lack of money meant he was unable to travel to the nearest track almost 40 kilometers (25 miles) away in Eldoret. It never formed part of his running picture.
At his father’s behest, Kiptum studied to be an electrician after finishing primary school but devoted most of his time to his athletic endeavours, dreaming of following in the footsteps of his village mate Geoffrey Kamworor, a double New York Marathon winner and the man who would eventually trail in second place behind Kiptum at last year’s London Marathon.
Barely a teenager, Kiptum would simply follow the many dozen groups beating a path along trails and roads near his home.
At just 13, Kiptum finished 10th in the Eldoret Half Marathon, returning five years later to win the event in the first notable result of his fledgling career.
Gervais Hakizimana, Kiptum’s Rwandan coach who also lost his life in the car crash that killed the Kenyan, recalled the pair’s early meetings: “When we did hill climbing sessions in the forest near his home, he was small but followed us, barefoot, after tending the goats and sheep.”
For some time, Kiptum was ostensibly self-coached, with Hakizimana little more than an advisory figure. Their relationship grew closer and more formal when Hakizimana was stuck in Kenya during the Covid pandemic.
Despite some decent half-marathon results over previous years, Kiptum was barely known when he lined up for his marathon debut in Valencia in December 2022. That all changed when he became the fastest ever marathon debutant and only the third in history to break 2:02.
After the Chicago marathon, Hakizimana explained Kiptum’s devotion to the sport meant he did little more than “run, eat and sleep” seven days a week. That included being a doting husband, and father to two kids.
Quietly spoken and unfailingly humble, Kiptum remained till the end a man of few words — a disposition that will only add to his mystique and legacy.
Adapted from The Independent tribute by Ben Bloom
