Zurich Marathon organizers set to honor Kelvin Kiptum and his coach on Sunday

The Zurich Marathon race organizers have announced that they will honor Kelvin Kiptum and his coach as they mark their 39th edition on Sunday.

The Zurich Marathon race organizers are set to honor world record holder Kelvin Kiptum and his Rwandese coach Gervais Hakizimana as they mark their 39th edition on Sunday, February 18.

In a post on their X (Twitter) handle, it was noted that they would give their last respects to the fallen marathoner who is also the world’s fastest marathoner before starting the race.

“On Sunday before the start (8h30) of the #ZurichMaratónSevilla24 we will pay tribute to Kelvin Kiptum, world record holder, and his coach, who died yesterday in a traffic accident in Kenya. We will observe 42 seconds of silence, as many as km of the race, in his memory,” the post read.

Despite Kiptum never running there, the organizers have observed the great significance the Kenyan had brought to the world of marathon running.

The reigning Chicago Marathon champion had so much potential and he would have shown us wonders, something that will never be fully realized from him.

He just turned 24 in December and he had a bright future ahead of him considering less than a year after making his marathon debut in the streets of Valencia, he ran faster than any man in history, taking over half a minute off the world record with his astonishing winning time of 2:00:35 in the Chicago Marathon last October.

In running the first sub 2:01, Kiptum bettered by 34 seconds the 2:01:09 set by five-time Berlin Marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge, in September 2022, running ever closer to breaking the two-hour barrier in a legitimate race.

His sudden death now ends that teasing possibility of going head-to-head with Kipchoge at the Olympic Games in Paris, France later this year, where Kipchoge is looking to become the first athlete in history to win three successive Olympic marathon titles with Kiptum appearing to be the athlete most capable of stopping him.

posted Tuesday February 13th
by Abigael Wuafula