In the midst of the despondency with the national state of affairs, the record in Vienna provided a fleeting moment of patriotic fervour. Eliud had cemented his iconic status as a Kenyan hero. I spoke to friends and family who had all reserved Saturday morning to watch Eliud Kipchoge race against the clock and his own limits and many compared it to the euphoric moment in November 2008 when Barack Obama beat Republican Senator John McCain to become the first black president-elect of America. Critics point to INEOS’s chequered environmental track record in Europe and recent fracking controversies as INEOS flexes muscle in the fossil fuel space in the UK.įor us, his country folk, the Kenyans, it was an ecstatic moment. The title sponsor, the petrochemical business empire that is INEOS and its majority shareholder, Jim Radcliffe, are accused by some of moving their headquarters to Switzerland to avoid paying UK taxes.
The outsized PR of the INEOS 1:59 was bound to be a niggling point for the detractors. There were undertones of culturally reductive theories that profile elite Kenyan runners as being forged from the desire to distance themselves from their poverty by running great distances to school – the single story of all great Kenyan athletes.
The purists point fingers at Eliud’s turbocharged shoes (the Nike Vaporfly Next%), the rotating cast of 41 pacers, a powered carb drink dispensed with precision, the pace car with a laser system as an additional wind breaker, the flat course and the emotional spin of a humble hero, tugging hearts in a compelling story of courage. Much of the analysis from the foreign press comes with the rider: great athlete but it was not a record-eligible marathon. By now you have heard and read acres of text discussing and dissecting Eliud Kipchoge’s epic performance as the first human to run a marathon distance in under 2 hours at the incredible pace of 1:59:40.
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