Victor Kiplangat eyes historic Marathon Olympic Gold
David GOMBE
Saturday 10.08.2024
Marathon Men Final (9am)
•Victor Kiplangat
•Stephen Kissa
•Andrew Rotich Kwemoi
Uganda’s Victor Kiplangat will be chasing Marathon gold at the Paris Olympic Games on streets of the French capital on Saturday morning.
Kiplangat is both the World and Commonwealth Men’s marathon champion and will be seeking to end legendary Eliud Kipchoge’s dominance at the Olympics.
He won the Commonwealth Marathon title in Birmingham, England in 2022 before adding the 2023 World title in Budapest.
Should Kiplangat triumph on Saturday in a field of 84 men, he will become the first man in history to hold three marathon titles.
Stephen Kissa and Andrew Kwemoi are the other Ugandans who will compete in the men’s marathon.
Kissa who was on course for a medal in the men’s world marathon in Budapest last year, fell and ended up finishing in fifth.
In February this year, Kissa was second at the Osaka Marathon in Japan with a time of 2:06.22 and his last warmup race in the same country saw him finish eighth in 1:03.07.
Kwemoi on the other hand didn’t finish the World Championships in Budapest after 33km but was third at the Milan Marathon in April with a time of 2:07.52.
The Ugandan trio will be seeking to follow into the footsteps of Stephen Kiprotich who is the last and only Ugandan athlete to have won the Olympic title
Meanwhile, Kenya’s Kipchoge wants to become the first athlete to win three back to back Olympic marathon titles.
Paris is the city where it all began for him and his rival Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele.
The 2003 World Championships was the first time the two legendary athletes met with Kipchoge winning his only track gold over the 5000m, with Bekele finishing third.
Bekele now 42 will be one of the two oldest athletes in the marathon entries alongside another Ethiopian now turned Swiss runner Tadesse Abraham.
Kipchoge is the fastest man alive in the absence of the world record holder Kelvin Kiptum, a fellow Kenyan who lowered the World Record at the 2023 Chicago Marathon. Kiptum died in accident in April this year.
Kiplangat and co will be aiming to end Kenya’s dominance over the 42km distance. Kenya has won three of the last four men’s Olympic marathons and still boasts a formidable team in Benson Kipruto, the winner at the 2024 Tokyo marathon where Kipchoge suffered his fourth marathon loss finishing 10th.