Eliud Kipchoge, the former double Olympic marathon champion and two-time world-record holder, has said that Sunday’s New York Marathon will be his final one.
The Kenyan, who turns 41 next week, will close out a glittering 13-year career on the roads that includes 16 wins from 23 competitive marathons. 11 of those wins have been at marathon majors, making him the most decorated athlete in those races — male or female.
“November, and it’s New York … It’s a place that has been on my mind for a long time,” he told Olympics.com. “It’s time for me to go there before embarking on my new journey of running for other things.”
His debut in New York will see Kipchoge complete the seven-star set. He has raced the other six major marathons (Sydney, Australia, was added in August), with wins in Tokyo and Chicago. Kipchoge is the only male athlete to have four London Marathon wins and is a five-time victor in Berlin, setting world records there in 2018 (2:01:39) and 2022 (2:01:09).
Asked about his future plans, Kipchoge replied: “I will run in Antarctica! I now want to do that extreme thing that can make someone work hard …”
Most famously, Kipchoge broke the two-hour barrier in Vienna six years ago, running 1:59:40 at the project staged by INEOS. That is, unofficially, the fastest marathon ever, but was not compliant with World Athletics race regulations to be world-record eligible, which is why Kipchoge ranks second on the all-time list behind the late Kelvin Kiptum.
There were Olympic marathon golds in 2016 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and 2021 (Tokyo, Japan), which made him the first man to defend an Olympic marathon title since East German Waldemar Cierpinski in 1980.
He did attempt a three-peat in Paris, France, last summer, on the hardest-ever Olympic marathon course. That remains the only marathon he has not finished, dropping out at 30km because of pain in his waist.
Valentijn Trouw, Kipchoge’s long-time athlete representative, has been approached for an official comment.
Kipchoge, the most successful marathoner of the 2010s, was elected this July to Kenya’s national Olympic committee, serving as the men’s athlete representative. He ran, ironically, unopposed.
“You will see me in a different way, maybe giving people motivation, but I will not run,” he said of his future in Paris last summer. “I need to go back, sit down, try to figure my 21 years of running at a high level. I need to evolve and feature in other things.”
This year is the first since turning to the roads in 2012 when Kipchoge has raced more than two marathons in one year. He was sixth in London in April (2:05:25) and placed ninth in Sydney (2:08:31) at the end of August.
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