Kipchoge at 39! What Eliud Kipchoge has achieved after 21 years in the game

ATHLETICS Kipchoge at 39! What Eliud Kipchoge has achieved after 21 years in the game

Abigael Wafula 09:30 - 05.11.2023

An evaluation of the accolades Eliud Kipchoge has achieved as he turns 39.

Considered the greatest marathoner of all time, Eliud Kipchoge started off his professional career in 2002, just at 18.

As he turns 39 today, November 5, Pulse Sports Kenya decided to dive into what Kipchoge has achieved so far, 21 years in the game and he is still going.

Kipchoge competed on the track and the cross-country in 2002, and he managed to win the 3000m race at the Cagliari Terra Sarda Meeting and also won the 5000m race at the Nairobi Kenyan Junior Championships.

The two-time Olympic champion claimed his first individual World Championship title in 2003 after winning the junior race at the World Cross Country Championships and setting a world junior record over 5000m on the track.

At his tender age, he became the World 5000m champion at the 2003 World Championships with a championship record. He then proceeded to bag the Olympic bronze in 2004 and a bronze at the 2006 World Indoor Championships.

The now 39-year-old then took silver medals at the 2007 World Championships, 2008 Beijing Olympics, and 2010 Commonwealth Games.

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Meanwhile, he switched to road running in 2012 and made the second-fastest half marathon debut ever, at 59:25, and later made his full marathon debut at the 2013 Hamburg Marathon which he won in a course record time.

The five-time Berlin Marathon champion then clinched his first victory in the World Marathon Major at the 2014 Chicago Marathon. Since then, Kipchoge has frequently appeared in the WMM and he has so far won the London Marathon a record four times.

Kipchoge also holds the record for most Berlin Marathon wins with five, his latest coming in September 2023. He also won the 2021 Tokyo Marathon. The only World Marathon Majors he has yet to conquer are New York City and Boston Marathons. 

With 15 victories out of his 18 marathons, Kipchoge's only losses have been a second-place finish behind Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich at the 2013 Berlin Marathon, where Kipsang broke the world record, an eighth-place finish at the 2020 London Marathon and a sixth place in his debut at the Boston Marathon in 2023.

Kipchoge also made history as the first man to run a marathon in under two hours. On October 12, 2019, Kipchoge ran the marathon distance for the Ineos 1:59 Challenge in Vienna, achieving a time of 1:59:40.

Kipchoge also broke the world record twice, the first time being during the 2018 edition of the Berlin Marathon. He clocked 2:01:39 to win the race before shattering his own world record in 2022 in the same streets of Berlin. He clocked 2:01:09 to win the race.

Kipchoge has also won the Olympic title in the marathon two times and he will be looking to make history when he goes to the Olympic Games in 2024 in Paris, France.

However, his world record has since been broken by 23-year-old Kelvin Kiptum who clocked 2:00:35 to win the Chicago Marathon.