Last month Kenyan Kelvin Kiptum ran to a new world record at the world-famous Chicago Marathon. He recorded a spectacular time of 2:00:35, but that is clearly not enough for Kiptum. He soon announced that next year, on April 14, he will participate in the Rotterdam Marathon (The Netherlands) and that he hopes to be the first person in the world to finish under two hours in a regular marathon.
Kiptum has one problem: finding pacers who can maintain an almost insane pace for long enough. In Chicago his average pace per kilometer was 2:51 and that will also be the target pace in Rotterdam. But, he does need enough pacers to be able to do so.
Kiptum clearly is a very successful marathon runner. He is only 23 years old, only took part in three marathons, but won them all. In addition to Chicago, he also won in Valencia (2022) and London (2023).
