Athletics
Immortality beckons as Kipchoge and Jepchirchir make Team Kenya final marathon teams
Eliud Kipchoge (File phone)
By Michael Kirwa |
Timothy Kiplagat and Sharon Looked have been named as reserves for the men's and women's teams respectively
Athletics Kenya has released the final men's and women's marathon teams that will represent Kenya at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Defending champions Eliud Kipchoge and Peres Jepchirchir will prowl the streets of Paris in search of unprecedented triple-Olympic and double-Olympic marathon titles respectively.
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Their hunt for Olympic Games immortality will face friendly resistance from compatriots 2024 London Marathon Alex Mutiso (men's), 2024 Boston Marathon champion Benson Kipruto (men's), 2020 Olympics silver medalist Brigid Kosgei (women') and two-time and current Boston Marathon champion Hellen Obiri (women's) who will also be running for glory in the French capital.
Timothy Kiplagat and Sharon Lokedi have been named as the reserves for the men's and women's teams respectively.
That Vincent Ng'etich (men's), Rosemary Wanjiru (women's), and Ruth Chepng'etich (women's) - stellar athletes in their own right - missed out on the final team shows how much of a headache the selection team had in picking the country's final team.
Someone explain to me why Rosemary Wanjiru is not in Kenya's final women's team for the #ParisOlympics. Not even as reserve? C'mon! @PassionSportsEA
— Jeff Kinyanjui (@_JeffKinyanjui) May 1, 2024
That reality just adds pressure on the team selected to win both events, if not sweep the podiun, and going by their accolades, their is no denying that they are more than capable to ensure that the Kenyan national anthem blares twice in the city of a thousand lights.
Kenya go to into the Olympics games as strong favourites to scoop gold in the event having won gold in the men's and women's at the last two Olympics Games.
The world witnessed the imperial dominance Eliud Kipchoge as he won gold at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics Games.
At the Paris Olympic Games, he will hope to scale the Mount Olympus of marathon running, winning three consecutive gold medals in the marathon at the Olympic Games.
Currently, Kipchoge's face is sculpted on the Olympic Games' Mount Rushmore together with those of the Ethiopian Abebe Bikila (1960 and 1964) and the East German Waldemar Cierpinski (1976 and 1980) as the only men with two Olympic Games gold medals in the marathon.
The immaculate brilliance of Peres Jepchirchir shone in the Land of the Rising Sun three years at the Tokyo Olympics Games when she succeeded compatriot Jemima Sungong as the women's Olympics marathon champion. Sumgong had won gold in the women's marathon at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Jepchirchir will go into Paris in formidable form as she hopes to become the first woman to win two gold medals in the marathon at the Olympics Games.
Jepchirchir will step on the streets of Paris as the reigning London Marathon champion and the record holder in the women's only marathon.
Kenya's domination of the marathon at the Olympic Games is more of recent phenomenon but one, judging from the country's current talent pool in the event, that continues to stretch to dynastic level of dominance.
In the men's event, Kenya first won a medal in the event when Douglas Wakiihuri finished second at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
Wakiihuri's silver medal was followed by an eight-year drought which was ended by Erick Wainaina's bronze at Atlanta 1996 which he upgraded to silver at Sydney 2000 to become the first Kenyan with two medals in the events.
An eight-year lull followed Wainaina's success but it ended with the most scintillating of ways at the 2008 Olympic Games as the late Samuel Wanjiru blazed to the tape at the Bird Nest Stadium in Beijing with an Olympic marathon record of 2 hours 6 minutes 32 minutes. His record still stands and his gold medal, Kenya's first ever in the event, remains unforgettable.
In London 2012, the gold medal evaded Kenya but the country still registered two medals in the marathon in a single edition of the Olympic Games for the first ever as Abel Kirui and Wilson Kipsang Kiprotch won silver and bronze respectively with the Uganda Stephen Kiprotich winning gold.
London 2012 was the last time Kenya won more than one medal in the marathon in a single edition of the Olympics Games but it was also the last time an athlete was better than a Kenya in the event as Rio 2016 ushered the Kipchoge era which may climax with an unprecedented third consecutive gold medal in Paris.
The Kenyan women were late to the party but when Joyce Chepchumba broke their duck with a bronze medal at Sydney 2000, the valiant daughters of the land have never left the dance floor.
Catherine Ndereba took the baton from Chepchumba and won silver at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
Priscah Jeptoo took from where Ndereba left and also won silver at London 2012.
At Rio 2016, Kenyan women finally caught up with the men with Jemima Sumgong winning the country its first gold medal in the women's Olympic Games marathon.
Peres Jepchirchir, with her victory at Tokyo 2020, ensured the gold medal remained home as Brigid Kosgei also added to Kenya's haul in that edition with a silver medal.
Paris is famed as the city of love and every Kenyan hopes that this year our athletes' romance with the marathon will enchant the world.
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