New marathon world record holder Kelvin Kiptum’s coach fears intense training will shorten career

CHICAGO – Kelvin Kiptum will not be slowed or curtailed in intense training, his coach Gervais Hakizimana says, even though it might shorten the career of the new men’s marathon world record holder.

Kiptum, a 23-year-old Kenyan, set the world record of 2hr 35sec on Sunday to win the Chicago Marathon, his third career victory in as many starts after wins at Valencia in 2022 and London in April.

“He’s very strong. He does all the training properly. He’s in his best years but at some point I’m afraid he’ll get injured,” Hakizimana told AFP.

“He’s training a lot. At this rate, he is in danger of breaking. I offered him to slow down the pace but he doesn’t want to.

“I told him that in five years he’d be done, that he needs to calm down to last in athletics.”

Before the finish, Kiptum was waving and blowing kisses at spectators before raising his arms in triumph at the finish line.

“I saw the time in front of me,” he said. “I felt good inside of me, maybe a little adrenaline.”

Kiptum shattered the old world record of 2:01:09 set by Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge at the 2022 Berlin Marathon.

Kenyan Benson Kipruto, the 2022 Chicago winner, was a distant second in 2:04:02 with Belgium’s Bashir Abdi, the European record holder who won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, third in 2:04:32.

“I feel so happy,” Kiptum said. “I wasn’t prepared. I knew I was coming for a course record but... a world record was not in my mind today.

“I knew one day one time I’d be a world record holder.”

The Kenyan smashes barriers in training as well, Hakizimana said, sometimes running more than 300km a week.

“Every week, Eliud Kipchoge does between 180 and 220km. Kelvin Kiptum is more between 250 and 280, sometimes more than 300km,” said the 36-year-old. “It’s an adventure.

“During the preparation for London, we spent three weeks at more than 300km. That’s a very large volume. He works a lot on endurance. When he’s training, he’s strong.”

Hakizimana said the marathon programme is planned over four months, starting with strength training at 900km running in the first month.

“The second month between 280 and 300km per week,” he said. “In the fourth month, we gradually reduce the volume, so that we can rest before the race.

“There’s no weekly rest. We rest when he gets tired. If he doesn’t show signs of fatigue or pain for a month, we continue. All he does is run, eat, sleep.”

Hakizimana is insisting on a month’s shutdown after Chicago. That message is getting through.

“Kelvin is a guy who likes to communicate, who listens a lot,” he said. “We speak in Swahili and a little bit in English. Now he understands me a little bit also in Rwandan or French.”

Hakizimana, who is from Rwanda, was a runner who trained for years in Kenya, where he met Kiptum in the youth’s village of Chepkorio.

In 2013, barely a teen, Kiptum herded goats and sheep then began following Hakizimana and other runners as they trained.

By 2019, Kiptum ran two half-marathons in two weeks, going 1:00:38 in Copenhagen and 59:53 in Belfort, France, and began training with Hakizimana, who stayed in Kenya when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

“I stayed there for a year and I trained him,” the coach said. “We were stuck there. We trained in the forest. I’d run with him. We started a marathon programme in 2021.”

The rest, after Sunday, is history.

Meanwhile, in the women’s race, Olympic double gold medallist Sifan Hassan denied Kenyan Ruth Chepngetich a third straight Chicago title on Sunday, winning her second-ever marathon in a scorching 2:13:44.

The Dutch middle-distance star won on her marathon debut in London in 2023 and had no issues with the longer distance yet again as she produced the second-fastest women’s marathon time.

She broke the tape 1min 53sec ahead of Chepngetich. Ethiopian Alemu Megertu took third in 2:17:09.

“I just love it,” Hassan said of the marathon grind.

“When you’re finished, you want to do it again.”
AFP, REUTERS