Talking with athletes in Kenya, they are speculating why. I will not post it here but remember this was the first Saturday subsequent to his record becoming ratified.
There's a history of famous East African runners being in deadly or near-deadly car accidents - Bikila, Lelei, Kiplagat, Bett, Rudisha, Tanui, Tergat...and now Kiptum. I'm sure there's many more.
no doubt kelvin kiptum would have been the first human to run the first ever sub-2 hour marathon without any artificial assistance (in other words, in an official competitive race)
There's a history of famous East African runners being in deadly or near-deadly car accidents - Bikila, Lelei, Kiplagat, Bett, Rudisha, Tanui, Tergat...and now Kiptum. I'm sure there's many more.
Talking with athletes in Kenya, they are speculating why. I will not post it here but remember this was the first Saturday subsequent to his record becoming ratified.
Talking with athletes in Kenya, they are speculating why. I will not post it here but remember this was the first Saturday subsequent to his record becoming ratified.
So much lifetime and running potential left untapped. Very very sad news.
Might sound inconsiderate to friends and family who knew him personally, but this adds an extra pang of hurt for fans. Like James Dean dying in a car crash at 24 or Otis Redding dying in plane crash at 26. What could've been.
Steve Prefontaine was 24. Samuel Wanjiru was 24. Kelvin Kiptum was 24. Terrible waste.
It's p well known in Iten that Nike (and adidas in Ethiopia...) will pay for travel to show off their new trophy around the world, but rarely invest in anti-doping measures, or something like the NHLPA for combatting a pretty well-entrenched culture of all-night-long partying/drunk driving in Kenya (and the rest of even the [wealthy] Islamic world for that matter)...
Most junior and senior Kenyan athletes come back to Iten and sell the entirety of their Nike kits: shells, tights, shorts, jerseys even for cash...
The main market for these kits are running tourists who come to visit the red dirt of the "Home of Champions."