KENYA'S 2024 OLYMPIC MARATHON TEAM: KIPCHOGE AND JEPCHIRCHIR CONFIRMED TO RUN
Athletics Kenya has named the six-person marathon team that will represent Kenya at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris this summer.
Returning to the Olympics to defend their gold medals in the marathon are Eliud Kipchoge, who will lead the men's team, and Peres Jepchirchir, who will head the women's.
Joining Kipchoge in the men's team are Alexander Munyao, who recently won this year's London Marathon, and Benson Kipruto, who took top honours at the Tokyo Marathon in March.
Jepchirchir, meanwhile, will be joined by two-time Boston Marathon champion Hellen Obiri, as well as the former world record holder in the marathon, Brigid Kosgei.
Who missed the mark?
The Kenyan marathon team is routinely one of the strongest in the world, along with that of Ethiopia. Notably absent from the squad this year is Sharon Lokedi, who finished runner-up to Obiri at Boston last month. Lokedi also won the New York City Marathon in her debut in 2022, following this up with a third-place finish at the same race in 2023. Chosen as the Kenyan women's team's alternate, Lokedi has recently been in better form than Kosgei, who fell off the top pack at April’s London Marathon and finished behind Lokedi in New York City last November.
Evans Chebet, a three-time Abbott World Major Marathon champion, was also left off the five-person shortlist that was announced by Athletics Kenya in early April. Despite winning the Boston Marathon in 2022 and 2023, Chebet finished third at the race this year, noting that he was coming off an Achilles injury that limited him in the second half of last year.
The selection for the men's team was additionally affected by the death of 24-year-old Kelvin Kiptum, who tragically died in a car crash in Kenya this February. Kiptum set the existing world record in the marathon (2:00:35) at the Chicago Marathon last October and was considered to be the next generational marathon talent.
How will the Kenyan team fare?
In Paris, Kipchoge will hope to become the first person to win Olympic three gold medals in the marathon, having won comfortably at both the 2016 and 2020 Games in Rio and Tokyo respectively. Since his Olympic successes, the 39-year-old has won both the 2022 and 2023 editions of the Berlin Marathon, setting a world record of 2:01:09 at the former. Kipchoge’s most recent result, however, came at the Tokyo Marathon in March, where he faded in the later stages to finish tenth.
Kipruto and Munyao have never made the Olympic Games, even though Kipruto, 33, has been a fixture on major marathon podiums throughout his career. Munyao, 27, is a relative newcomer to the marathon, but still owns an impressive personal best of 2:03:11.
The women’s squad is more experienced on the world's stage. To complement her 2020 Olympic gold medal, Jepchirchir is also a three-time half marathon world champion, while Obiri earned silver medals in the 5,000m at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games. Kosgei, too, finished second in the marathon behind Jepchirchir at the Tokyo Olympics.
Here’s a summary of the Kenyan team and the athletes’ personal bests:
Kenya women’s Olympic marathon team
- Peres Jepchirchir (2:16:16, London 2024)
- Brigid Kosgei (2:14:04, Chicago 2019)
- Hellen Obiri (2:25:49, New York City 2022)
- Alternate: Sharon Lokedi (2:23:23, New York City 2022)
Kenya men’s Olympic marathon team
- Eliud Kipchoge (2:01:09, Berlin 2022)
- Benson Kipruto (2:02:16, Tokyo 2024)
- Alexander Munyao (2:03:11, Valencia 2023)
- Alternate: Timothy Kiplagat (2:02:55, Tokyo 2024)