Paris Olympics on channels 26.7.–11.8. Go to the competition website here. You can find the entire program of the games here.
Athletics World Championships 2003, Paris.
The rising young stars of endurance running Eliud Kipchoge mixed Kenenisa Bekele are fighting for the 5,000m World Championship gold.
Kenya’s 18-year-old Kipchoge is the world champion, while the Ethiopian, who is three years older, is third in the race. Bekele celebrates the 10,000 meters world championship at the same games.
At the Olympic Games in Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008), Kipchoge had to watch Bekele’s heels in the 5,000 meter races until the finish line. At the Beijing Games, Bekele celebrates his first double gold.
21 years after their first big meeting, the two meet again in Paris, this time in the Olympic marathon.
The African runners, who reached the status of sport legends long ago, will most likely meet each other for the last time. And what’s best: where the story properly began for both of them.
The fan site started showing off
Kenya named its rock-hard marathon Olympic team in the spring. The name of Kipchoge, who won the previous two Olympic gold medals in the sport, was on the list.
Kipchoge can easily be talked about as the best marathon runner of all time. In addition to two Olympic golds, he has won numerous city marathons.
He is a former marathoner and a long-time ME man. He is the only marathon runner in history to have broken the mystical two-hour mark. Sure, he got help from several different hares, but still.
Read more: The first time under two hours in a marathon does not qualify as ME
of Kenya Kelvin Kiptum in October 2023 improved his countryman’s world record by more than half a minute when he ran the Chicago Marathon in 2:00:35. Kiptum died in a car accident in February of this year at the age of 23.
Bekele, on the other hand, is British Mo Farah’s along with one of the biggest ever on long track journeys. The Ethiopian has achieved a total of eight title race victories at 5,000 and 10,000 meters. He held the world record times for those trips for a long time.
In the all-time marathon statistics, he is third after Kiptum and Kipchoge. In addition to all this, Bekele has excelled as a very sovereign cross-country runner.
Endurance running fans had long painted dream pictures of the two icons meeting in Paris. When news came about Kipchoge’s trip to the competition, the excitement grew. So much so that on the same day, a fan site also reported on Bekele’s participation.
However, the news was a lie. The publication quickly disappeared.
The example reflects how big a spectacle the meeting of two legends is. Let’s talk endurance running Messi and Ronaldo’s from the last encounter.
Soon the real news came that Bekele will also be seen at the Paris Marathon.
Meeting with Bekele
One of the greatest hopes of Finnish men’s endurance running Mustafa Muuse in addition to his own sports, is a passionate follower of athletics. The 22-year-old young man has the history of the sport in his possession.
He drops names of Olympic marathon winners like from a pharmacy shelf. However, Bekele and Kipchoge are in a class of their own.
– There are two giants of our sport in it. Of course, Farah has four Olympic golds and many other World Cup medals. For example, Bekele has been able to run marathons, cross-country and on the track hard. The career has also been extremely long.
Muuse himself also has his own contact surface with the elite of the world of endurance running. He trained for a long time in Mo Farah’s camp group. More than a year ago, at the camp in Ethiopia, he was able to exchange a few words with Bekele himself.
Muuse trained on the track built and owned by Bekele.
– It was different to see him, because I have watched his old games. The appreciation for him is really different. He appreciated other runners and always stopped if someone had a question, Muuse recalls.
Talent vs. Lifestyle
Although Kipchoge and Bekele have both had long and handsome careers, there are clear differences between the superstars.
Muuse says running for Kipchoge is more routine.
– She goes to bed at the same time, eats the same food and goes for a massage on the same day every week. Kipchoge is the result of hard work.
According to Muuse, Bekele is the greatest talent of all time, who sometimes had to be motivated back to the race tracks.
The Ethiopian runner switched to the marathon ten years ago. He ran his great record time of 2:01.41 about five years ago in Berlin. Bekele was exactly two seconds away from Kipchoge’s ME time at the time.
The starting points for the record run were not the most usual.
– Before that he was overweight. He was flown to Holland. The man was put in a hotel room, and he had to lose weight, after which they started working out. A few months later he was in the shape of his life and almost broke the world record.
– That tells about what kind of talent he is, Muuse adds.
The circle closes
While Bekele clearly shined out of the two on track trips, Kipchoge, on the other hand, has taken marathon running to a new level. He has broken the ME twice, in 2018 and 2022.
The Kenyan has been awarded for his achievements by World Athletics as the world’s best all-around athlete. In Paris, he can make history by winning the marathon Olympic gold for the third time.
Bekele, on the other hand, will run in Paris at the Olympic level for the first time in 12 years. Even though Mo Farah could sometimes be even more sovereign than Bekele on the track, he was not able to stay at the top for as long.
– Farah has tipped his hat to Bekele for how he is able to run so hard at that age. Farah himself was getting old, and his body wasn’t working. I assume we are talking about the last few moments when we get to enjoy Bekele running at that level.
Muuse wants to fight for the medal in the Paris marathon Sisay Lemmaa (ETH), Bashir Abdia (BEL) and his good friend Abdi Nageeyeaa (NED). However, the Finnish runner reminds that Kipchoge and Bekele are in such a condition that they will be in the top positions in Paris even 21 years later.
– It would be a wonderful crown for the endurance running fanatic if they both made it to the podium. However, you have to enjoy the fact that both guys are now on the line.
The Olympic men’s marathon will be run on Saturday.