Eliud Kipchoge: Kenyan icon calls time on Olympic career after 'worst marathon' at Paris 2024 Games - 'That's life'
Published 10/08/2024 at 11:55 GMT
Two-time Olympic champion and world record holder Eliud Kipchoge has confirmed he will not run at Los Angeles 2028. The Kenyan icon has called time on a 20-year Olympic career after failing to finish the marathon at Paris 2024, being reduced to a walk and eventually pulling out after 31km. Kipchoge called it his "worst marathon", which was won by Ethiopia's Tamirat Tola in a time of 2:06:26.
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Eliud Kipchoge has run his last race at the Olympics after failing to finish the “worst marathon” of his career, the Kenyan confirmed on Saturday.
The two-time gold medallist dropped out 31km into the Paris 2024 marathon, which was won by Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola in record time.
It brings an end to an extraordinary 20-year Olympics career which began with a bronze medal at Athens 2004 and concluded in disappointment on the streets of the French capital.
Comparing himself to a boxer, the 39-year-old could not hide his dismay as discomfort around his midriff forced him to abandon his title defence.
“It is a difficult time for me,” said Kipchoge via Olympics.com.
“This is my worst marathon. I have never done a DNF. 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."
Kipchoge became only the third man to win the Olympic marathon on two separate occasions when he finished in a time of 2:04:30 at Tokyo 2020.
Setting a world record just two years ago in the 2022 Berlin Marathon, Kipchoge went on to win the same event the following year for a record fifth time.
But that was sandwiched by the slowest marathon time in his career in Boston and his lowest-ever finishing place in Tokyo this March.
Asked whether he would haul himself off the canvas for his sixth Olympics at Los Angeles 2028, Kipchoge confirmed he might be there, but not as an athlete.
“You will see me in a different way, maybe giving people motivation, but I will not run," Kipchoge said.
"I don't know what next. I need to go back [home], sit down, try to figure my 21 years of running at a high level. I need to evolve and feature in other things.”
An Olympic-record time of 2:06:26 was enough for Tola to clinch his first gold medal on a challenging, hilly course that took competitors from the centre of Paris to Versailles and back.
Bashir Abdi of Belgium crossed the line 21 seconds later to upgrade his Rio bronze to silver, and Benson Kipruto ensured there would be Kenyan representation on the podium as he took third.
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