Every morning at the same spartan camp in rural Kenya where he’s trained for two decades, Eliud Kipchoge rises at 5.45am. By a little after 6am, the godfather of marathon running is out pounding the red dirt roads, flanked by many of the world’s best athletes, as training partners and with sheep and cattle passing by.
“I’m out and I’m training twice a day, trying to cover between 25 to 30 kilometres every day,” Kipchoge says. “I’m training seven days a week. I really sacrifice to be fit.”
Kipchoge lives 30 minutes from the Kaptagat training camp, located at high altitude in south-west Kenya, with his wife and three kids. But in the four months before a marathon, Kipchoge will move to the basic accommodation and dedicate his life to the training.
It’s been a successful formula. Kipchoge is widely regarded as the GOAT of marathon running, after winning back-to-back Olympic gold medals, breaking the world record and becoming the first man – unofficially – to run the famous 42.195km in under two hours.
Kipchoge is at the camp now, shortly before his first trip to Australia. The legend has been signed to race in the Sydney Marathon on August 31, as part of an all-star field assembled for the first year of Sydney as the seventh – and newest – of the Abbott World Marathon Majors.
Sydney was last year elevated to join the London, Chicago, Berlin, Tokyo, New York and Boston marathons as the world’s elite races, and given he’s won 11 majors in four of those cities, you’d be a brave person to discount yet another Kipchoge victory.
Eliud Kipchoge takes gold in Tokyo.Credit: Getty Images
But there are also no guarantees. Now aged 40, Kipchoge’s aura of invincibility has faded. A win in Sydney would be his first since 2023, and in his past three starts, Kipchoge’s best finish was sixth.
There are good reasons why, including a new generation of rivals he inspired and emboldened, injury and the still-undefeated Father Time.
And, in an interview with this masthead, Kipchoge also opened up on how deeply he was impacted last year by the road accident death of fellow Kenyan marathoner Kelvin Kiptum, and an abusive online campaign falsely accusing him of being involved, given Kiptum had recently broken his world record.
But none of it can stop Kipchoge from setting the 5.45am alarm.
“I want to inspire the next generation and to inspire people around the planet. I want to make this world a running world,” Kipchoge says. “That’s why I’m still running. That’s why I’m still waking up every morning, doing all sorts of trainings with pain and everything, to preach the gospel of running.”
GOAT of the game
In a world where GOAT status will be awarded to a passable sandwich, Kipchoge is one of a rare few whose Greatest of All-Time credentials are not in question.
Eliud Kipchoge celebrates his “record” marathon time in Vienna in 2019.Credit: EPA
After winning Olympic bronze and silver in the 5000m in 2004 and 2008, the Kenyan moved to marathons and became unbeatable. Between 2014 and 2019, he won 10 consecutive races, including his first Olympic gold in Rio. He went back-to-back in Tokyo, and at the end of 2022, had won 16 of 19 official marathons he had entered.
Kipchoge held the world record between 2018 and 2023 – his time of 2:01:09 is now second – and in 2019, Kipchoge even ran 1:59:40 for a marathon, at a special event with assistance, that did not count as a record.
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There are legends in the GOAT conversation, including Emil Zatopek, who won Olympic gold in his first marathon, and Norwegian female pioneer Grete Waitz, who won 12 major races. And, of course, Ethiopian Abebe Bikila, who ran in bare feet and won Olympic gold in 1960 in a world record time, and then won again in 1964, just a few weeks after an appendectomy. But none can quite match Kipchoge’s sustained dominance.
“The only comparison would be Usain Bolt,” Sydney Marathon race director Wayne Larden says, after securing the major coup of signing Kipchoge to run in Sydney’s first year as a world major.
More than 35,000 people are set to run on Sunday, August 31, and among them are many of the world’s best, including Paris women’s gold medallist Sifan Hassan and Ethiopian men’s star Birhanu Legese.
In the men’s field, there are 16 men who have run under 2:06:00.
Eliud Kipchoge poses with his gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.Credit: Getty Images
Form-wise, Kipchoge will have his work cut out to cross the line first at the Sydney Opera House forecourt. In 2024, he came 10th in the Tokyo marathon and did not finish at the Olympics due to a back complaint. He came sixth in London in April this year in a time of 2:05.25.
Now in his 40s, Kipchoge says he is happy with his new life as a travelling preacher, and he also takes pride in having “opened the door” for his young rivals to chase what was once thought impossible.
But, unsurprisingly, the steely competitor has not disappeared either.
“I believe that I’m still ready to go and run 2:02:00, 2:03:00,” he says.
“I’m still able to train with the young generation and finish training together. That’s my happiness. Maybe in future generations I will inspire them. But I’m the happiest man because now I’ve opened their minds to show them, hey, if you train well, work on that core, and you’ll actually tip under two hours. That athlete is thinking now of making history.”
Kiptum made history when he lowered Kipchoge’s world record with an astounding time of 2:00:35 in Chicago in 2023.
Eliud Kipchoge at his training camp in Kenya.
It was agonisingly close to the magic two-hour mark, under race conditions. Does Kipchoge think it will happen in his lifetime?
“Absolutely, yes,” he says. “I trust and believe that someone will run under two hours. The magic is that it’s in yourself to accept and do it.
“I’m seeing now a lot of young people have accepted that we need to push ourselves. We need to see how our minds and how our bodies can push us.”
The death of Kiptum
At the age of 24 – and just five months after his world record run – Kiptum and coach Gervais Hakizimana died in a car accident near Kaptagat. Police said Kiptum lost control of his car late at night and hit a tree.
Kelvin Kiptum after breaking the marathon world record.Credit: Getty Images
A whispering campaign in Kenya emerged, falsely suggesting Kipchoge had been involved. The champion lost friends and training partners, as a result, and was subjected to online abuse and threats.
“I was shocked that people [on] social media platforms are saying, ‘Eliud is involved in the death of this boy’,” Kipchoge told BBC Sport Africa last year.
“That was my worst news ever in my life. I received a lot of bad things; that they will burn the [training] camp, they will burn my investments in town, they will burn my house, they will burn my family.”
The strain ultimately contributed to Kipchoge’s toughest year, including the heartbreak of failing to finish as he chased an unprecedented third consecutive Olympic gold.
The wreckage of the vehicle in which world marathon record holder Kelvin Kiptum and his Rwandese coach Garvais Hakizimana died when they crashed.Credit: AP
“[It] was a really, really hard year in my career; it was a hard time for me and my family,” he says.
“My people around me, it was the hardest time ever. And you know, personally, we are only giving positivity to the sport, but people can think exactly negative of what you are doing.
“It brought a lot of impact to myself, to my family. And those people, they drove me down and took me down. But all in all, I know myself, I know what I’ve been doing. I try to be a good person and wake up and move on with the sport, and that’s where I am now.”
Did he ever think about walking away?
“My love of running is still there, so I ask myself, ‘Why do I quit? Why do I run away? Because somebody was actually saying a lot of things?’,” Kipchoge says. “So let me still keep running, and do what I’ve been doing. I believe in the values which I’m standing for. I’m still standing on them.”
Fast cars and Sydney run clubs
Ever humble, Kipchoge demurs when asked about being the greatest. So if he is not, who does he rate as the GOAT?
“I think Haile Gebrselassie is the GOAT,” he answers. “I believe Haile opened a lot of doors for all of us, the younger people.
Skatman, a high-tempo song, is Ethiopian long distance champion
Haile Gebrselassie’s chosen tune.Credit: Vince Caligiuri
“Outside of long-distance running, I believe the Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton is a GOAT. I got a lot of inspiration from him. For driving for that long, the speed of over 300[km/h] for the whole year, year in, year out, and the values that he’s standing for.”
Kipchoge was 15 during the Sydney Olympics, when Gebrselassie won his second gold in the 10,000m, but his stronger memory is being at school when all of Kenya stopped to cheer home hero Noah Ngeny as he beat the legendary Hicham El Guerrouj in the 1500m.
He plans to look over the Sydney course next week in a car before the race, but if you’ve ever wondered if you could foot it with Kipchoge, keep an eye out: he also wants to pop down to Bondi for a trot with a running club.
“If you see the pictures, if you see everything on the internet as far as Sydney is concerned, it is beautiful” he says. “The bridge, the beauty, how the roads are, I’m really looking forward to it.
“I believe Sydney will be the most beautiful course ever in this world.”
