Eliud Kipchoge smashes world marathon record in Berlin

After running first half at sub-2hr pace, the Kenyan slows in latter stages but still takes half a minute off his global mark with 2:01:09 as Tigist Assefa of Ethiopia scores women’s win in 2:15:37

In the days leading up to the 2022 BMW Berlin Marathon the rumours from the Rift Valley were that Eliud Kipchoge was in fantastic shape. The 37-year-old Kenyan is not known for hyperbole either so when he arrived in Germany and quietly predicted that he was looking for a “good race” it was an ominous sign that something special was about to happen.

During a mesmeric display of distance running on Sunday (Sept 25) Kipchoge delivered on his promise and delighted the thousands of spectators lining the route as he took half a minute off his world record of 2:01:39 with 2:01:09.

Amazingly, he scorched through halfway in 59:51 too. But he had to wave auf weidersehen to any hopes of breaking two hours on this World Marathon Majors course as he had to complete most of the second half of the race alone. Despite the vicious early pace he avoided hitting The Wall, however, and held on to not only smash his world record but he scored a fourth victory in Berlin, equalling the achievement of Haile Gebrselassie.

“We went too fast,” he said, admitting that his original plan was to go through halfway in 60:40. Several thousand miles away and talking on Kenyan television, his coach Patrick Sang agreed as he described the pace as “unfortunate … it was too fast for them”.

Still, he cemented his status as the world’s greatest ever marathon runner with a world record that was achieved the hard way – with splits of 59:51 and 61:18.

A half-marathon of 59:51 would have been a world record for that distance alone as recently as 1993. And at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna three years ago he managed to maintain that pace for 26.2 miles but on that occasion he was helped by a phalanx of pacemakers for almost the entire distance.

Setting off in near perfect conditions on Sunday morning in Berlin, Kipchoge cruised through 10km in 28:23. At this stage Kipchoge had company as well from Guye Adola and Andamlak Belihu of Ethiopia and they went through their 12^th kilometre in a sizzling 2:47 – which is 1:59:26 pace.

Going through 15km in 42:33, he was amazingly two seconds quicker than his 1:59:41 run from Vienna.

Berlin Marathon (NN Running)

Adola began to drop off the lead group just before halfway, though, and eventually dropped out. Belihu,…