The Abbott World Marathon Majors Series XIV is about to crank back into gear in Berlin, with all eyes on Eliud Kipchoge’s return to the German capital.
The Kenyan’s status as the finest marathon runner of all time is unquestionably secure, and it would seem the next conquests in his sights are two-fold.
One is to become the first able-bodied runner to win all six AbbottWMM races. He requires victories in Boston and New York City to achieve that feat.
The second is to lower his own world record, set in Berlin in 2018 when he ran 2:01:39.
He has, of course, gone faster. Under controlled conditions in the fall of 2019, he blazed a trail through the streets of Vienna to break the two-hour barrier.
Whether he can repeat that feat in certified race conditions is doubtful, given the lengths organizers of the INEOS 1:59 project went to to create the optimum environment.
But the way he decimated the field in Berlin four years ago to become the first man to run sub 2:02, and his subsequent triumphs in winning a second consecutive Olympic gold in 2021 and setting a new course record in Tokyo earlier this year, suggest the passage of time has done little to blunt his talents thus far.
Kipchoge’s chances of a new world-leading mark on Sunday will be influenced by weather, early pace and the other variables such as drink stations, the form of other runners and simply how he feels when he throws off the duvet on Sunday morning.
He laughed off suggestions in the pre-race press conference that he will aim for an eye-watering 60:40 at halfway, but let his rivals know that he is ready to make them suffer in typically philosophical fashion:
"If you feel pain in a marathon, that’s where success is," he said. "I keep calm, I enjoy running. 42km is like life, it has ups and downs, but you need to feel the pain along the way, you can’t finish without pain."
Victory here would take him to the maximum 50 points in this year's AbbottWMM Series. He faces Guye Adola, last year’s Berlin champion, who is no stranger to pain, having suffered through the heat in 2021 to take the tape, and Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, the 2015 world champion and 2016 New York City winner.
"It's my first time in Berlin," Ghebreslassie said. "If we speak about Kipchoge, we are speaking about a legend, so to run with him is not easy. This will be a challenging race."
Adola will be emboldened by the performance he put in against Kipchoge on the same course in 2017, leading after 37km but unable to sustain his advantage. Kipchoge ran out the winner by 14 seconds in the end.
"Kipchoge is very talented and he’s like a hero," said Adola. "In 2017 I just went in front with no thinking or plan, I was just keeping my legs moving. I did not realise I was competing with Kipchoge and he beat me at the last moment."
Adola will attempt to set himself up for a similar battle in the championship miles this time around. It remains to be seen if anyone can live with Kipchoge once the scent of the finish line fills his nostrils and he dials up the pace for that final 5km.
There’s nothing quite like watching Kipchoge in full flight. What we have never seen on the roads of an AbbottWMM race, is how he would react to a dog fight in the dying embers of a marathon.
If Adola or anyone else can at least drag the great man into that kind of deep water, it would be a moral victory if nothing else.
Read the elite women's race preview here.
