Kelvin Kiptum would have become the first person to run a competitive marathon in under two hours, World Athletics president Lord Sebastian Coe has said.
The Kenyan, the world record holder over 26.2 miles (42km), died aged 24 on 11 February and his funeral was held in his home village on Friday.
Kiptum was looking to better his record time of two hours and 35 seconds at April’s Rotterdam Marathon.
Lord Coe believes breaking the two-hour barrier in an official race will be akin to Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile in 1954 and the first successful climb of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
“It is a frustration to all of us that we won’t witness what I truly know he was capable of,” Lord Coe told BBC Sport Africa.
“For sure he would have broken it. It would have been (Roger) Bannister and Edmund Hillary, both of them, wrapped into one.”
Kiptum set his world record in Chicago last October, bettering compatriot Eliud Kipchoge’s previous benchmark by 34 seconds.
Kipchoge had become the first athlete to run the marathon distance in under two hours in October 2019, clocking one hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds in Vienna.
(BBC sport)
