So, it's finally happening. The marathon GOAT, Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, is coming to Boston for Patriots Day 2023. Today (1 Dec. 2022), the BAA and Kipchoge announced the news.
Quite an introductory announcement for newly named (and richly deserved) BAA President and CEO Jack Fleming.
"We are committed to a great RACE! (Races!)," Jack texted this morning. "We have been preparing for this opportunity for some time. Remember Grete here in 1982? Abebe Bikila here in 1963?"
It's been a long time in coming, yes, and the hype will be something to behold. The one caveat in this welcome announcement - and it's one the sport has been unable to extract itself from - is the shadow of PED use. Not by Kipchoge. There has never been a hint of that. But at the World Athletics' council meeting in Rome yesterday, Lord Sebastian Coe, the WA president, said Kenya, while avoiding a Russian-like total ban from competition, has a "long journey" ahead to rebuild trust following a disturbing number of doping violations.
"Over the course of one year, 40% of all the positives recorded [in doping tests] in global athletics are in Kenya," said Coe. "This was not something the sport, and certainly not World Athletics, was prepared to sit and develop."
Earlier this year, Philemon Kacheran Lokedi, who trains with Kipchoge and his NN Running Team, was banned for three years by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) after testing positive for exogenous testosterone from an out-of-competition sample taken on April 27.
In 2019, Kacheran was one of the pacers for Kipchoge's successful INEOS-1:59 Challenge. Kipchoge's coach, Patrick Sang, referred to Kacheran as one of Kipchoge's strongest training partners. He was the second INEOS pacer to be banned for a doping offense. Alex Korio received a two-year ban for whereabouts failures in 2020.
Fingers crossed the coast remains clear, and that the reality of the race next April lives up to the promise, because, as Jack's text reminds us, over and above anything untoward, the marathon in Boston can be a tricky thing with its unpredictable weather, hilly terrain, and absence of pacers.
So, notwithstanding the all but immaculate record laid down by the remarkable Mr. Kipchoge - in his 17 official starts, he's only lost twice, once in Berlin 2013 in his second start, where he placed second behind Wilson Kipsang's 2:03:23 world record. And then in 2020 London, when an ear infection threw him off his water, and he really wasn't the full measure of himself (8th, in 2:06:49). Other than that, victory after victory, record after record.
I've been investigating world record holders who've also run Boston, and it's an interesting lineup that Kipchoge will now join. In all, nine men who had set, or would set, the marathon world record, also competed in Boston. Kipchoge will be number ten. Read more of this post
(@kipchogeeliud)
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