Kenya had been hoping the late world marathon record-holder Kelvin Kiptum could break the two-hour barrier at the Paris Olympics, the head of Kenyan athletics said, calling his tragic death “devastating”. Kiptum, a 24-year-old father of two, was killed in a late-night car crash on February 11, just months after setting a new marathon record in Chicago with a time of 2:00:35. The shock of his loss was felt worldwide, leaving sports fans thinking of the last great landmark in modern athletics and what might have been this August at the 2024 Games.
“He was a young man; he was just coming up; he was only 24; and he had just broken the world record. And so everybody was really devastated,” Athletics Kenya president Jackson Tuwei told AFP. “What was so sad was that everybody was looking to him to do well in the Olympics and maybe lower the marathon record below two hours,” the national governing body chief said.—AFP
