Running News Daily

Six Best Marathon Runners of all time

The marathon is one of the toughest running events.  This event is set at 26.2 miles or 42.195 kilometers, as presented by the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) in 1921.

It's a significantly long-distance race that most  people could not complete.  It takes lots of training.  One of the most famous marathon is Boston coming up Monday April 17.  And one of our top six will be running, Eliud Kipchoge.  So here are our six  marathoners as the best of all time. What are your top six? 

Eliud Kipchoge

Eliud Kipchoge easily tops this list as being the GOAT (greatest of all time!) in marathon history. He's a Kenyan runner that participated in marathons and used to specialize in the 5000-meter distance. Kipchoge has already made history and set a world record last September 2018 in Berlin after he completed the distance set for the Olympic men's race with 2:01:39.

No one else was able to defeat the record for several years until Eliud Kipchoge himself broke his own record at his fifth Berlin marathon last year, September 2022 with 2:1:9. It's a 30-second gap from his initial world record, which is a significant improvement already as a runner.

Not only that but he's also been a three-time London and Berlin champion since 2015! At 38 years old, he's already achieved so much, and he's not stopping just yet. Kipchoge also informed everyone that he'll be aiming for the Paris 2024 games, so you should also wait for that and check the updates on FanDuel Sports online.

Haile Gebrselassie

Next on the list is truly one of the marathon legends who dominated the industry when he was still active. Haile Gebreselassie is an Ethiopian long-distance runner who retired last 2015 after over 20 years of long-distance running. He's been active from the late 90s to the early 2000s, and a few of his astonishing achievements include consecutively winning the Berlin Marathon four times and the Dubai Marathon three times.

He also has four World Championship titles (1993 Stuttgart, 1995 Gothenburg, 1997 Athens, and 1999 Seville) and two Olympic golds (1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney) in a 10,000-meter distance run. Although he's no longer in the running scene, his legendary achievements will live long.

Abebe Bikila

If you're a huge fan of marathon events, you should already know about Abebe Bikila by now. He's a pioneer marathon runner that made significant feats in the history of the marathon. To start, he's the only athlete who ran barefoot during the Rome 1960 Olympics. He faced the cobblestones head-on, won a gold, and even set a world record. Bikila became the first Black African that ever topped at the Games in a 42.195km race.

Furthermore, his amazing barefoot run made it to the Guinness World Record as the fastest marathon run in bare feet at the 1960 Olympic Games with 2:15:16.2. Additionally, Abebe Bikila was also the first runner to win two Olympic marathon events after he grabbed another gold at Tokyo 1964

Mo Farah

Mo Farah is a British marathon runner who's only the second athlete to win 10,000-meter and 5,000-meter titles at successive Olympic Games. Throughout his athletic career, he accumulated 19 gold with nine silvers and two bronzes.

Moreover, he initially planned to retire but then changed his mind and participated in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and was even tipped by the excellent Eliud Kipchoge. He's still active to this day, but Farah shared with everyone that 2023 will be his final year after confirming that he will be participating in the London Marathon this April and giving it "one more shot."

Catherine Ndereba

Catherine, the Great Ndereba, is the first woman on this list, and she deserved it. She's one of the marathon runners that other athletes should recognize. The Olympics even regarded her achievement as one of the great.

In 2005, she was even awarded by the former Kenya president Mwai Kibaki with the Order of the Golden Aware due to her excellent accomplishments. Not only that, but she was also awarded 2004 and 2005 Kenyan Sportswoman of the Year.

Although she couldn't bring home gold from participating in the Olympic Games, she got to win silver awards for the 2004 Athen Games and 2008 Beijing Games. Additionally, she also has eight gold wins in World Championships and World Marathon Majors combined.

Paula Radcliffe

Paula Radcliffe is also one of the marathon runners that overcame her health issues as a child and became a successful athlete as an adult. Growing up, she struggled with anemia and asthma, but these were just a few bumps in the road as she continued to work hard and brought home several gold awards.

This British long-distance runner was the women's world record holder for over 16 years (2003 to 2019) for being the fastest female marathon runner with 2:15:25 until Brigid Kosgei broke it in 2020. Aside from that, she's also able to win New York City and London marathons three times and won 15 gold awards in total.

Final Thoughts

Marathon is an exciting sport, and no regular person can participate. It takes great understanding that a marathon is more than just running. Being as powerful as the runners mentioned above takes months of training and endurance. Although there are still other remarkable marathon runners, these six, in particular, made significant achievements in this field.

(04/11/2023) Views: 2,057 ⚡AMP