Paris 2024 athletics: Eliud Kipchoge announces the end of his Olympic career after 'worst marathon'
Eliud Kipchoge won't compete at another Olympics after failing to finish a race on Saturday, 10 August, for the first time in his storied career at Paris 2024.
Clearly disappointed but still holding his head high as one of only three men to win the Olympic marathon twice, the Kenyan told Olympics.com that even this wouldn’t stop him from pursuing marathon running that began 11 years ago.
“It is a difficult time for me,” he admitted after dropping out just after the 30km mark after an hour and about 40 seconds of running, with a discomfort around his waist.
"This is my worst marathon. I have never done a DNF (did not finish). That’s life. Like a boxer, I have been knocked down, I have won, I have come second, eighth, 10th, fifth – now I did not finish. That’s life."
On whether he would attempt another Olympic race at Los Angeles 2028, he said “you will see me in a different way, maybe giving people motivation, but I will not run."
"I don't know what next. I need to go back [home], sit down, try to figure my 21 years of running at high level. I need to evolve and feature in other things,” he added.
Eliud Kipchoge on his future after first career DNF
When Kipchoge returned for his second marathon this season at the square at Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, he exuded confidence and was relaxed fist bumping with other runners, including his long time rival Kenenisa Bekele.
He was a man on a mission-get back to winning ways- or at least reach the Olympic podium for a fourth time in his fifth Olympic Games.
His second last race was in Berlin last September, when he became the first man to under two hours and three minutes for the marathon with his 2:02.42.
Kipchoge’s new mark barely lasted a month as Kelvin Kiptum, now deceased, lowered that mark to 2 hours and 35 seconds.
At 19 degrees centigrade and average humidity, the conditions suited him and the other 80 starters perfectly. In Rio and at the Tokyo Olympic race in Sapporo, he had demonstrated his desire to win with grim determination in sweltering conditions.
This time he was well armed for the rising heat with his striking cooling headband, designed to enhance performance (and comfort) in the heat.
Kipchoge just shy of his 40th birthday was here for another highlight in his celebrated marathon career. The running guru, stayed at a touching distance of the leading pack up to the 15km mark. Then he began holding his waist, early worrying signs that all was not well for the defending Olympic champion.
Then it became clear that there would be no redemption on the Olympic marathon course, at least.
He began falling off the pace, as other runners eased past. Swiss runner Tadese Abraham slowed down to check on him and he confirmed the discomfort.
“My waist was a little bit painful. It was a sharp pain,” he explained to Olympics.com. "And it was not allowing me to continue with the race.”
“It’s difficult for you to train for more than four months and then get a pain where it can stop you,” he said.
The pain intensified forcing him to take a difficult decision, to end his race about 12 km away from the finish point at Les Invalides, the first time, he will not cross a finish line. Before his final Olympic showing, Kipchoge's worst marathon result was the 10th place at the 2024 Tokyo Marathon.
As other runners urged him on, Kipchoge opted to walk part of the race, cheered on by the huge crowds lining the picturesque streets to witness the best of marathon running. He only ended his Olympic run after the last man on the field, Ser-Od Bat Ochir, the six-time Olympian from Mongolian had passed him.
“The other runners were telling me to push on, but I was telling them, 'No, I have pain, I can’t'. I could feel the love and respect from them,” Kipchoge who came to the finish point only wearing his shorts told journalists.
“I walked for 2km and had more than 300 people on either side of me walking with me. That’s why I don’t have my shirt, the socks, the shoes, the race number.”
A shirtless Eliud Kipchoge speaking to journalists the marathon finish point at Invalides in Paris.
The French capital, which catapulted him to global fame and elevated his reputation as a teenage 5000m world champion, would be the scene of the marathon’s great last Olympic parade.
“It was not the race I came here for,” Kipchoge admitted. "But that’s sport. Sport is up and down. Sport is like a [garden] when you go and plant seed, then there is actually weeds and flowers, today I harvested weeds."
Despite the unexpected turn in his last Olympic hurrah, the two-time world record holder has no intentions to call time on his career, not just yet.
“I will continue to [run], absolutely why not?” he posed on plans to end his running career.
“I will not go into coaching. I have many other things to do than being a coach. I have to travel around the world, around the countries to motivate people.”