Sudden death of Kelvin Kiptum at 24: marathon record holder killed in car accident

Le recordman est mort à âge de 24 ans. XinHua – Li Ying

Big favorite for the Olympics, Kenyan marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum died on Sunday February 11, 2024 during a road accident in central Kenya.

Kenyan athlete Kelvin Kiptum, who died on Sunday in a road accident, amazed the world of running by achieving the feat of seizing of the marathon world record in Chicago last October.

Tragic accident

Kiptum was training near his original village, Chepkorio (west), about forty kilometers from Eldoret, a mecca for Kenyan running .

He was guided in particular by the Rwandan Gervais Hakizimana, French resident, national level runner who had met Kiptum during his training stays in Kenya, who also died on Sunday in the accident of the route.

A third occupant, injured, was hospitalized. Kenyan police have not released his identity.

Marathon record holder

Still unknown two years ago, Kiptum made a sensational appearance on the marathon planet by seizing the world record on only his third attempt, in 2 hours 00 minutes and 35 seconds in Chicago, faster than his compatriot Eliud Kipchoge, athletics legend.

Kiptum's death at the age of 24, when glory seemed promised to him this year, is as brutal as his rise had been. Kiptum had warned that he would try to be the first man to run an official marathon in less than two hours in Rotterdam on April 14.

He was also the huge favorite for the Paris Olympic Games (July 26 – August 11). Last October, the young Kenyan flew on the asphalt of Chicago, accelerating without flagging to beat the world record, less than a year after his first attempt at the distance in Valencia (Spain, 2h01:53 in December 2022).

A crazy trajectory, the opposite of that of the greatest runner in history, Eliud Kipchoge, against whom he never raced. Kipchoge, aged 39, double Olympic champion and former world record holder, had triumphed after a career built in stages, first on the track until he was 27. He is aiming for a third Olympic title in Paris this summer.

A frenzied athlete

"When we did hill climbing sessions in the forest near his house, he was small but followed us, barefoot, after having tended the goats and the sheep. It was in 2013, he hadn't really started running yet", Gervais Hakizimana told AFP in October.

Kiptum started running regularly in 2016. In 2019, he managed two very fast half-marathons in two weeks (60:48 in Copenhagen then 59:53 in Belfort, France), when Gervais Hakizimana had offered to coach him for the marathon.

A training convict, Kiptum regularly ran more than 250 kilometers per week, and sometimes more than 300, rare figures even at a very high level, assured his coach, who spoke with his runner in Swahili and English. "He just runs, eats, sleeps", added the coach.

Kiptum's death at age 24 recalls the sudden death of another great Kenyan marathon runner, Samuel Wanjiru, at the same age. Wanjiru, Olympic champion in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics, died in 2011 after falling from a balcony.