A marathon of sporting excellence, loss & hope

In this week’s Member Insight piece, Michael Pirrie analyses the outpouring of global grief that greeted the sudden death of Kenyan marathon great Kelvin Kiptum, and what his loss & legacy mean to world sport.

World athletics has been running on empty this week, mourning and processing the sudden passing of Kelvin Kiptum, Kenya’s emerging superstar runner, on the threshold of sporting greatness.

The death of the world’s fastest marathon runner, in a road car crash, after years of brutal road work training, is cloaked in tragic irony and loss on a scale rarely encountered in sport.

While the 1958 Munich air disaster claimed the lives of several Manchester United players, unlike the late Sir Bobby Charlton, Kiptum would not survive his crash.

The magnitude of Kiptum’s loss has left the world of sport in shock, trying to comprehend the rare and confronting circumstances of the athlete’s fateful death.

The suddenness of Kiptum’s passing and his remarkable running achievements, while still in the formative stages of a rapidly evolving career, have perhaps been the most difficult for many to reconcile.

The tragedy reflects how unknown the gap between life and death can be in sport as in all of life.

In contrast to Kiptum, the legendary NBL star, Kobe Bryant, died in a helicopter crash in 2020 aged 41, after 20 historic seasons.    

The loss of such a profoundly talented young athlete as Kiptum, with almost unheralded potential, has been hardest to grasp, drawing comparisons with greats also lost prematurely in other fields.

These include iconic Hollywood actor, James Dean, who also died in a car crash, also aged 24.

The stark contrast between the violent circumstances of Kiptum’s death and the uplifting possibilities in sport and life embodied in his running heightened global bewilderment.

Kiptum’s loss will be widely felt, from world athletic championships to international blockbuster marathon events where the unassuming Kenyan first announced himself has the next big thing in athletics.

Kiptum became the most exciting athlete on the planet last year with landmark wins at the London Marathon and later at the Chicago Marathon, where he shattered the world record in a time of 2:00:35, delivering one of the single greatest performances in sporting history.  

The world’s biggest audiences were awaiting Kiptum in Paris later this year, where he was predicted to run rings around the Olympic host city marathon course and clock the first sub two hour time  – the current Olympic marathon record stands at 2:06:32

Kiptum’s Paris marathon had been eagerly anticipated as a highlight of the Games, and possibly one of great performances of the century, taking sport into new territory like Usain Bolt had done in shattering the 100 metres record in Beijing in 2008. 

British long distance runner Emile Cairess, who finished sixth in the London Marathon last year, expressed sport’s deep grief over Kiptum’s passing.

 “Many people thought they would never see a sub two-hour marathon in their lifetimes but since he (Kiptum) came along, it’s like it was just a given that he would do it because of his exceptional performances so far.”

“It was almost certain that he would have done it. It’s terribly sad and a real shame that we won’t get to see him again or to attack that barrier.”Kiptum was a sporting supernova who seemed destined for greatness – after herding animals barefooted on a family property as a young boy, Kiptum was initially unable to 

afford a pair of shoes to run in his first major competition   

Kiptum abandoned his father’s plans for his only child to become an electrical engineer, deciding to electrify the world instead with high voltage running performances.

CONCLUSION

Kelvin Kiptum’s death, on the road to sporting greatness, after a car crash on roads that he had conquered during  countless hours of training, has shocked and transfixed the sporting world.

The Kenyan’s untimely death, before he could fulfill his enormous potential is an enormous tragedy – for the young runner, for his family, and for sport.

The world has been deprived of a singular sporting talent; an athlete on the brink of redefining the boundaries of sport and human achievement.

Kiptum was the great hope of the Paris Games; of pulling off possibly the greatest sporting milestone of the century – like the late Sir Roger Bannister who took sport into a new era last century with the first sub four minute mile.

Kelvin’s death was a tragic reminder of hope’s fragility.

But this was not a tragedy of false or lost hope.

 Kiptum demonstrated the sub-two-hour marathon, the holy grail of athletics, long regarded as improbable if not impossible, is now within close reach.

The young Kenyan leaves a legacy of achievement, inspiration, and hope for others to follow that will survive his death.