World marathon champion Geoffrey Kirui has high hope to win the rescheduled Boston Marathon

World marathon champion Geoffrey Kirui says he briefly lost interest in training after organizers of the Boston marathon pushed the event back to September.

However, he has learned to live with the situation and has slowly resumed training hoping he will be fit to return to competition in September and prove his critics wrong to win another major marathon race.

Kirui, who won gold in the men's marathon at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics in London, has experienced torrid performances since.

He failed in his bid to win in Boston last year settling for fifth place at 2:08:55 and finished 14th at the World Championships in Doha, Qatar.

"The fear of contracting the virus made it hard to train in the first place. People were scared and locked themselves up. But I have found a way to train in Nakuru and I have been enjoying my runs with hope to compete in Boston if it will not be canceled," Kirui said on Wednesday.

But with news coming in that the Berlin Marathon has been canceled, Kirui is still fearful his hard work in training might go down the drain should organizers in Boston opt not to stage the event altogether until 2021.

"September is not far away. Already there will be no marathon in Berlin, but we hope America will open up and allow us to compete. People need to return back to life and see what sports can offer. I can only pray to God for things to change," he added.

Kirui's best performance since his win in London was a second-place finish at the 2018 Boston Marathon. He was also sixth in Chicago race in the same year. But he is still optimistic to turn his career around and chase gold in the 2020 season.

"There will always be some race that will boost your career and I believe after a turbulent time in the last two years, I can get a win and stabilize my running again. There is a lot of competition from the younger athletes, but that is what is helping me remain focused. A small slip will be hard to recover from," added Kirui.

Of importance to Kirui is to return to competition and gauge how his solo training has fared.

"When the world is back to normal and we have a sports competition, we will be glad and happy. For now, our health and safety is the priority. But while we maintain a safe distance, we need to focus ahead beyond COVID-19 and strategize on how to compete again," he said.

posted Thursday April 30th