Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge won his record fourth BMW Berlin Marathon title in a 2022 World Athletics Elite Platinum road race on Sunday morning in Germany, breaking the world record with 2:01:09.
Kipchoge dethroned defending champion Guye Adola of Ethiopia, who recorded 2:05:45 in last year’s race to match the record of Haile Gebrselassie with four Berlin Marathon titles. The Ethiopian won four consecutive Berlin Marathon titles between 2006 and 2009.
On Sunday, Adola struggled to catch up with the well oiled Kipchoge from the distance of 6Km, allowing the Kenyan rule the race from the onset.
Kipchoge, the double Olympic champion was back in the Germany capital and left a mark at the place where he set a world record of 2:01:39 in 2018.
Earlier on, the 37-year-old marathoner had expressed optimism ahead of the Sunday’s run.
“Berlin is a very good place where a human being can actually push limits. I still have to come back to Berlin to try and push limits,” he told World Athletics.
“I can’t say it will be a world record but I want to run a good race – be it a world record, be it a personal best, be it a good race. If all goes well and it is a personal best, a world record, then I will celebrate.”
Eliud Kipchoge also holds an unofficial marathon best of 1:59:41 following the non-record eligible INEOS 1:59 Challenge time trial in Vienna in 2019.
He believes that he has been a trailblazer for the next generations in the sport and that one day a human being can run a full marathon under 2 hours on the clock.
“I trust that I have shown the way to many athletes, to the next generation, that one day a human being will run under two hours on a normal course, like Berlin or somewhere else,” added Kipchoge, who won the Enschede Marathon and his second Olympic marathon last year and then returned to Japan in March to win the Tokyo Marathon in 2:02:40.
“I don’t think I am going to Berlin to run under two hours, but I am going to Berlin to run a very good race that will make everybody inspired and love marathons.”
Kipchoge is also the 2015, 2017 and 2018 Berlin Marathon champion.
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