Kipchoge out to prove London Marathon was a blip on the radar

Kipchoge out for redemption in The Netherlands

JOHANNESBURG, April 16 (ANA) – At this weekend’s NN Mission Marathon in the Netherlands, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge will shed some light on whether his star is waning, or if his London Marathon shock poor performance last year was a blip on the radar.

Kipchoge was originally due to race at the Hamburg Marathon last weekend, but new lockdown restrictions meant the event could no longer be held in the German city. The race was moved to The Netherlands at an airport where the runners will repeat a loop of around 5km.

Though he is the undisputed best men’s marathoner of all time, the 36-year-old recorded his worst result ever in a major 42.2km race last year at the London Marathon.

It’s not uncommon for a top athlete to have a bad day in the marathon, but that just never happened to Kipchoge until the event in London in October in which he faded in the latter stages to take eighth position.

He’s the only man to have completed the 42.2km distance in under two hours in an unofficial special event called the Ineos 1:59 Challenge, and the current world record holder with his time of 2:01:39 he ran at the Berlin Marathon in 2018.

Up until the 2020 London Marathon, Kipchoge had won 11 of the 12 marathons he had competed in – with the only blemish on his record being the second place he claimed at the 2013 Berlin Marathon.

While many will point to the fact that it was just one race, and that Kipchoge is human after all – the unusually poor result came at the age of 35. Now aged 36, Kipchoge may just be beginning to feel the effects of his total domination for close to a decade.

Or it really could have been just a bad day at the office, and the race this weekend may just show if Kipchoge is shaping up to defend the Olympic Marathon title he won in 2016. – African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Michael Sherman