Olympic marathon Champion, Stephen Kiprotich of Uganda will be targeting fast times at the 19th edition of the Toronto Marathon that will be held on October 21, 2018 in Toronto, Canada.
The 2012 Olympic marathon champion will face off with the race course record holder and two-time Toronto champion Philemon Rono from Kenya in which it will culminate to be an intense battle between the two accomplished marathon runners.
The duos are both friends and training partners and both are based in Iten.
“I am really happy and training hard and looking forward to competing in this big race in Toronto,” says Kiprotich, who also won the marathon title at the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Moscow, joining Ethiopia’s Gezehegne Abera as the only men to ever win both major competitions.
“I was speaking with Rono and I asked him what the course like is”. Rono said the course is good and nice. I was telling him if we go fast and run the first half in 1:03 minutes, we can push at the end to 2:05. He told me it is possible.”
Kiprotich’s major championship success is outstanding and all the more remarkable since he chose to make Global Sport Communications which is based in Iten as his training base. The camp hosts some of the finest road runners that include Eliud Kipchoge and Geoffrey Kamworor who are both coached by 1992 Olympic steeplechase silver medallist Patrick Sang.
Kiprotich goes to Toronto with a personal best of 2:06.33 that he got in 2015 at the Tokyo Marathon and will be looking to lower this time when he competes in Toronto.
“I have the two medals but also I want to run a faster time than 2:05,” he says. “Most of the people they look at my times and they ask me how did you win these two medals in poor times? So it is my hope to run a good time before I retire.”
Kiprotich and Rono can expect some stiff competition from New Zealand’s Jake Robertson who will be running his second marathon after debuting at the Lake Biwa Marathon where he set his personal best and National record of 2:06.26.
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