Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge won the Tokyo Olympic men’s marathon in Sapporo on Sunday.
Kipchoge, the greatest marathoner of all time finished in two hours, eight minutes and 38 seconds.
This was his second straight gold medal.
Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands took silver at 2:09:58 and Belgium’s Bashir Abdi won bronze.
The 36-year-old joins Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila (1960 and 1964) and East Germany’s Waldemar Cierpinski (1976 and 1980) as the only runners to win back-to-back gold medals on the Olympic stage.
“I think I have fulfilled the legacy by winning the marathon for the second time, back-to-back. I hope now to help inspire the next generation,” Kipchoge said after the race.
Kipchoge holds the world record in the marathon with a personal best time of 2:01:39 from the Berlin Marathon in 2018.
He is also the only human to have run a marathon under two hours, 1:59:40 in Vienna in 2019. Although it is not an official world record.
Kipchoge, now 36, has won 13 of the 15 official marathons he ran including four London Marathons, three Berlin Marathons and two Olympic marathons.
“I think I have fulfilled the legacy by winning the marathon for the second time, back-to-back. I hope now to help inspire the next generation,” Kipchoge said after the race.
The Olympic dream is a special dream. For every athlete here it has taken a lifetime of preparation to get to this point. Today I lived my Olympic dream. I always say that sport is like life, whereby you can win and lose. But today was a day where I won. pic.twitter.com/vDzYKcH8Yg
— Eliud Kipchoge – EGH🇰🇪 (@EliudKipchoge) August 8, 2021
