Double Olympic marathon champion, Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:01:09 marathon world record, has been ratified by World Athletics.
The 38 year-old won the Berlin Marathon last year, taking 30 seconds off the marathon world record he had set in the same city on 16 September 2018.
Kipchoge who has run four of the six fastest marathons in history, went out hard, passing through 5km in 14:14 and 10km in 28:22 – not just comfortably inside world record pace, but also well inside a projected two-hour finish. He maintained that pace through half way, which was reached in 59:50 – identical to his half-way split when he produced a sub-two-hour run in an unofficial orchestrated race in Vienna three years ago. His pace started to drop slightly from then on, but he was still comfortably inside world record pace.
Ethiopia’s Andamlak Belihu had been level with Kipchoge up until that point, but the Kenyan superstar then gradually pulled clear and was out on his own. He passed through 30km in 1:25:40, then reached 35km in 1:40:10. By the time he passed through 40km in 1:54:53, his lead grew to more than four minutes.
Kipchoge surged ahead to cut the tape in 2:01:09, making this the eighth consecutive men’s marathon world record to be set in Berlin.
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