Eliud Kipchoge cemented his claims to be the greatest distance runner of all time as he retained his Olympic marathon title in brutal conditions in Sapporo.
As the Kenyan crossed the line in 2:08.38, he thumped his chest and smiled. Behind him a string of top-class athletes bowed their heads in pain – and respect to the little master.
“I think I have fulfilled the legacy by winning the marathon for the second time, back to back,” he said. “I hope now to help inspire the next generation.”
Despite the 7am start, conditions on the road were so hot and humid that several athletes held bags of ice in their hands to cool themselves down – or were forced to pull up at the side of the road, their legs wobbly with exhaustion. Of the 106 starters, 30 did not finish.
Kipchoge, though, remained impenetrably cool. At 30km, there were 10 athletes left in the leading group. But then he dropped a five-kilometre stretch in 14min 28sec – in 27C heat and 73% humidity – to move out of sight of the field by 35km. Another sub-15min 5km followed and the rest was history as he took gold by 80 seconds.
“The weather was OK,” said Kipchoge, with a stoic’s resolve. “I can’t complain. We were all on the same frying pan. And today I lived my Olympic dream.”
Some had questioned whether the Kenyan, who is officially 36, was on the slide after he suffered his first defeat in seven years at last year’s London Marathon. Back in October he cited a blocked ear for this poor run. This was the loudest possible retort.
“Marathon is like life and in life there a lot of challenges,” he said. “On the road, there are potholes, big and small, in life there are a lot of ups and downs. London was one of the challenges. They say that if you love sport then you accept what has happened; I accepted what happened in London. I move on.”
Victory also made him only the third athlete to defend an Olympic marathon title, following the bare-footed Ethiopian Abebe Bikila in 1960 and 1964 and the East German Waldemar Cierpinski in 1976 and 1980.
Just for good measure, Kipchoge also holds the official world marathon record of 2:01:39 and has run a sub-two hour marathon with the help of pacers. He was also a 5,000m world champion in 2003, and won Olympic bronze and silver over 5,000m in 2004 and 2008 respectively. It seems scarcely believable that his first Olympic medal came 17 years ago.
Behind Kipchoge, the Dutch athlete Abdi Nageeye took silver in 2:09.58 – although he spent the last 30m looking behind him to encourage his training partner and friend Bashir Abdi of Belgium, who pipped the Kenyan Lawrence Cherono for bronze.
“He said: ‘You must go,’” explained Abdi. “If he was not there, it would have been a difficult last 3km. In training one of us is always a little better than the other in different training sessions. We encourage each other. It is what teammates do.”
Of Britain’s three runners, two – Ben Connor and Callum Hawkins – did not finish. However, the evergreen Chris Thompson finished 54th in 2:21.29 at the age of 40, but admitted it had been a right slog afterwards.
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“That last six to eight miles was one of the emotionally toughest things I’ve done running-wise,” he said. “You really go to some weird places. There were a couple of times where I felt like I could barely lift my legs, and you’re still staring down the barrel of five miles to go, 25 minutes to half an hour, and you can barely bring your leg up. That’s the first time I’ve felt that so-called wall. I went through about five or six walls where I felt like I hit something.”
“There were times when I was telling myself ‘you have to finish’, but there were times when I was thinking I physically can’t.”