NAIROBI, Kenya — Marathon world record-holder Kelvin Kiptum, who was set to be a famous person of long-distance working and was a prime contender for gold on the Olympics in Paris this 12 months, was killed alongside together with his coach in a automobile crash in Kenya.
Their automobile was the one one concerned within the crash late Sunday and Kiptum was driving when it veered off a street and right into a ditch earlier than hitting a tree, police stated.
Kenya’s Kiptum was 24 and one of the crucial thrilling prospects to emerge in street working in years, having damaged the world document in solely his third look in an elite marathon. His document, set ultimately 12 months’s Chicago Marathon, was ratified by worldwide observe federation World Athletics simply final week.
His dying reverberated via Kenya, the place runners are the most important sports activities stars. Kenyans have additionally gotten used to tragic tales involving their prime athletes after a quantity have died in street crashes, different accidents and home violence instances.
“He was solely 24,” Kenyan President William Ruto stated in a press release providing his condolences. “Kiptum was our future.”
Kiptum and his Rwandan coach, Gervais Hakizimana, have been killed within the crash at round 11 p.m., police stated. It occurred close to the city of Kaptagat in western Kenya, within the coronary heart of the high-altitude area that is famend as a coaching base for one of the best distance runners from Kenya and the world over.
Kiptum was born and raised within the space.
A 3rd individual, a 24-year-old lady, was additionally within the automobile and was taken to a hospital with critical accidents, police stated. Kiptum and Hakizimana died on the scene.
Athletes and members of the family, together with Kiptum’s father, gathered on the hospital mortuary the place the our bodies of Kiptum and his coach have been taken. One of many athletes, former girls’s steeplechase world champion Milcah Chemos, struggled to talk whereas breaking down in tears.
“I’ve no phrases to clarify the lack of Kelvin,” she stated.
Kenneth Kimaiyo, a good friend of Kiptum, stated he arrived on the crash scene quickly after it occurred and Kiptum had been thrown out of the automobile. Images confirmed the silver automobile with a badly mangled roof and the windshield crushed flat.
Kiptum was the primary man to run the marathon in below 2 hours, 1 minute in an official race when he set the world document of two:00.35 in Chicago in October, beating the mark of fellow Kenyan and marathon nice Eliud Kipchoge, who’s the reigning two-time Olympic champion.
Kiptum and Kipchoge have been anticipated to offer an attractive all-Kenyan battle for marathon gold in Paris and Kiptum was resulting from begin his season on the Rotterdam Marathon in April, which might have been his first occasion since breaking the world document.
“An athlete who had an entire life forward of him to realize unimaginable greatness,” Kipchoge stated in a message paying tribute.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe was one of many first to supply his condolences in a press release on X, previously Twitter.
“We’re shocked and deeply saddened to be taught of the devastating lack of Kelvin Kiptum and his coach, Gervais Hakizimana,” Coe wrote.
“It was solely earlier this week in Chicago, the place the place Kelvin set his extraordinary marathon World Report, that I used to be capable of formally ratify his historic time. An unimaginable athlete leaving an unimaginable legacy, we’ll miss him dearly.”
David Rudisha, Kenya’s two-time Olympic champion within the 800 meters, wrote on X that Kiptum’s dying was “an enormous loss.”
Kiptum had rapid success by working the quickest time ever by a marathon debutant on the 2022 Valencia Marathon. The next 12 months, he received the London and Chicago races, two of essentially the most prestigious marathons on this planet. He set a brand new course document on the London Marathon final April after which grew to become the quickest marathoner on this planet months later.
Whereas younger and new to the circuit, he had already run three of the seven quickest marathon occasions ever recorded and was seen as a uncommon expertise.
However he was additionally the most recent Kenyan star to die in devastating circumstances.
David Lelei, an All-Africa Video games silver medalist, died in a automobile crash in 2010. Marathon runner Francis Kiplagat was amongst 5 individuals who have been killed in a crash in 2018. Nicholas Bett, who received gold within the 400 meter hurdles on the 2015 world championships, additionally died in a automobile crash in 2018.
Rudisha, former 10,000 meters world champion Moses Tanui and Olympic silver medalist Paul Tergat have all survived critical street accidents within the East African nation.
Samuel Wanjiru, the 2008 Olympic marathon champion who was additionally tipped to be an all-time nice, died in 2011 on the age of 24 after falling from a balcony at his dwelling in Kenya.
Kenyans have been maybe most shocked when Agnes Tirop, a a number of cross-country world champion, was stabbed to dying in her dwelling in 2021, allegedly by her husband. He was charged with homicide.
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Imray reported from Cape City, South Africa.
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AP Africa information: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
