The Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge has beaten the marathon world record, which he himself had established in 2018, in his victory this Sunday in the Berlin marathon, setting a new mark of two hours, one minute and nine seconds. The utopia of lowering the distance from two hours is now closer.
The 37-year-old current Olympic champion stopped the clock in 2:01:09 to improve by half a minute the 2:01:39 hours that he himself had set in 2018 in the German capital. His compatriot Mark Korir was second a long way, at 4:49.
Kipchoge had already won in Berlin in 2015, 2017 and 2018, and with his fourth success he equals Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, who also won there four times. Now, he has a balance of 15 victories in his 17 official marathons, including Olympic gold in 2016 and 2021 and the Tokyo marathon in his first race of 2022.
The best in history
The Kenyan continues to set himself the goal of running a marathon in less than two hours, and this Sunday he fell well short of the 1:59:40 he recorded in 2019 in Vienna, a time not recognized as a world record because it was not an open race and because it occurred under laboratory conditions and with ‘hares’.
Kipchoge is established as the best long distance runner of all time.
