Can Eliud Kipchoge bounce back to win Paris 2024 Olympic marathon gold after Boston disappointment?
The double Olympic champion has a talent for turning setbacks into chances for success. As he looks to make history in Paris, the Kenyan will be inspired by his comeback at the Tokyo Olympics following a disappointing 2020 London Marathon.
“Shocking. Unexpected. Baffling. Unbelievable. Heart-breaking.”
These are some of the words used to describe the upsetting defeat of the greatest male marathon runner of all time, Eliud Kipchoge at the 2023 Boston Marathon.
The double Olympic champion had claimed 12 major marathons in his astonishing career, which had earned him legendary status.
Before touring the course last week, the athletics star had never experienced the hills of Boston.
He had watched and heard stories of the most notorious, brutal course in the World Marathon Majors Series.
Like millions of his fans around the world, he hoped and believed that he would conquer the mighty Newton accents at his first Boston Marathon attempt.
However, the significant hill, aptly christened Heartbreak Hill, proved to be the exact point that broke his heart.
At around the 30-kilometre mark, the 38-year-old faded as the leading pack surged ahead, and he just managed to finish sixth, over three minutes behind fellow Kenyan Evans Chebet, who captured consecutive Boston victories.
This was another crushing defeat in similarly drenched conditions for the world record holder, as in the 2020 London Marathon race, where he stuttered home in eighth.
The King, whose proclamation that 'no human is limited' continues to inspire millions not to put limits as they push boundaries, is human after all.
“I live for the moments where I get to challenge the limits. It’s never guaranteed, it’s never easy…we must accept that today wasn’t the day to push the barrier to greater height...Excited for what’s ahead,” he posted on social media.
The Olympic disappointments that fuelled Eliud Kipchoge to marathon greatness
Being Kipchoge, what hurts him has a way of growing him.
A good place to start is with his Olympic history.
At his second Games at Beijing 2008, Kipchoge was aiming for his first Olympic title and his second career gold after clinching gold in the 5000m at the 2003 World Championships.
“I was really in shape in Beijing. Even with two laps to go, my mind was telling me, 'You will be Olympic Champion this year!'
"But I had no more fuel and Kenenisa Bekele won the race,” he told the Olympic Channel in an interview exactly two years ago.
Kipchoge had to wait another eight years to win the Olympic title he so craved.
According to his career plan, he had hoped to take another shot at London 2012, but he could only finish seventh in the 5000m at the Olympic trials in Nairobi, missing his chance on the Kenyan team.
That loss turned out to be a career-defining moment. Nearly three weeks after the London Olympics, Kipchoge unexpectedly switched to the roads.
He finished third in his half-marathon debut at the Lille Half Marathon behind compatriot Ezekiel Chebii, who set a new course record. And with that race, he bid the track goodbye.
The following year, the four-time Olympic medallist ran his first 42.2km race in Hamburg and won, the start of his epic marathon career. That same year, in only his second marathon, he was the runner-up behind Wilson Kipsang, who set a new marathon world record of 2:03.23.
“I was still learning how to handle the ropes of marathon and other stuff. I did not lose so much,” he recalled.
The London Marathon loss that fired up Eloud Kipchoge for his second Olympic gold
After the 2013 Berlin race, he went unbeaten for seven years with a remarkable streak of 10 straight wins, excluding the two time-trials topped by his 1:59:40 in a non-record-eligible event in Vienna in 2019.
However, his invincibility came to an end at the 2020 London Marathon, a race he had dominated in four previous appearances. Kipchoge said he developed an issue with his right ear that was blocked, which contributed to his poor performance.
Despite this upsetting defeat, Kipchoge bounced back with a spectacular performance at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 in Sapporo, where he won gold.
He followed this up with a world record-breaking performance in Berlin in September last year.
Kipchoge's aim was to run and win in all six majors, and after topping in Chicago, London, Tokyo, and Berlin, he can take comfort in the exploits of another Olympic marathon great, Abebe Bikila, who won the 1960 Olympic race barefooted.
The Ethiopian legend also turned to Boston in between his Games exploits in 1960 and 1964, where he came in fifth, the only time in his career that he finished an international marathon without winning.
At his second Olympics, also in Tokyo, Bekele became the first runner to sucessfully defend his Olympic marathon title, again in a world record time.
Kipchoge, Bikila (1960 and 1964) and East Germany's Waldemar Cierpinski (1976 and 1980) are the only runners to win consecutive gold medals at the Olympic Games.
With no pacemakers, the Boston marathon is like a championship race and was an ideal test for Kipchoge before his probable swansong Games.
He wants to become the first man to twice defend an Olympic marathon title at Paris 2024
The marathon icon is likely to shake off Monday’s disappointment at the Newton hills and put himself on the line again, probably in New York on November 5 - a redemption race.
Whether he returns to tackle the hills again next year in Boston or tests his spirits in London next spring for his 20th marathon start is anyone’s guess.
The only certainty for now is that Kipchoge’s main goal is to push himself one more time on the grueling Olympic course, where no one has ever won more than two medals.
“I still have something boiling in my stomach, that’s why I am looking forward to it,” he said of his quest for a third straight Olympic title.