Two-time Olympic champion and world marathon record holder, Eliud Kipchoge confirmed Wednesday he will be going for an unprecedented third title at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“I still have something boiling in my stomach that is why I am looking forward to it,” said Kipchoge, who won the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 titles, during a virtual press conference.
At Tokyo 2020, with an impressive two hours eight minutes 38 seconds, the 37-year-old became just the third man to win gold medals in back-to-back Olympics marathons, cementing his legacy among the greatest in distance running.
Now he is eying to end his career by cementing his legacy as an Olympic legend.
“My main motivation is to inspire the whole world and the next one is the love of sport,” Kipchoge said in response to a question by Olympics.com on his bid for more Olympic glory.
“When I say the inspiration to the whole world is that I still need the next generation. I trust by 2024 I will have made the world a running world,” said Kipchoge.
Kipchoge, an ambassador for Paris 2024, joined Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila (1960 and 1964) and East Germany’s Waldemar Cierpinski (1976 and 1980) as the only runners to win consecutive marathon gold medals at the Olympic Games.
At Rio 2016, the 37-year-old became only the second Kenyan after the Beijing 2008 gold medalist, the late Samuel Wanjiru, to win the men’s Olympics crown when he stopped the clock at 2:08:44 on August 16, 2016. He set the new world record of 2:01:39 at the 2018 Berlin Marathon on October 16.
Kipchoge became the first man to break the two-hour marathon barrier at a special event dubbed “INEOS 1:59 Challenge” in Vienna on October 12, 2019, when he clocked 1:59:40 on his second attempt.
