Rome – He had to squeeze out time and now he no longer has any, Kelvin Kiptumthe man who was poised to take the marathon under two hours, has died in a car accident in Kenya.
He had a date set for an undertaking that he felt was his. Last October, in Chicago he took the world record from Kipchoge, the master of the 42 km, Kenyan like him, trained in that type of inner calm that allows you to overturn the parameters. Kiptum instead suddenly appeared. No track in his career, he didn't have the money to attend it and he didn't have years to invest in getting noticed. Destiny, he was in a hurry, as if he felt he had to take every chance immediately.
He compressed the stages. He hit the road with a pair of borrowed shoes, a trial marathon and then off to get serious, to run among the best, always followed by the coach Garvais Hakizaman, a former athlete from Rwanda, who died with his pupil in car that crashed in Kaptagat, Eldoret region, where long-distance workers work. Where you live to run.
He was 24 years old, he would have raced in Rotterdam in April who planned everything for him, to see the time limit drop below 2 hours 00 minutes and 35 seconds, below the known limit. The marathon, like the 100 meters, marks a human unit of measurement: the fastest in the world and the one who covers the longest distance with the least effort, beating a visible and dense time that knows a lot about what is passing. Two hours and he wanted to get off, he probably would have but he stopped while driving. He has lost control, the stopwatch has stopped and is now running in circles.
#Athletics #mourning #farewell #Kelvin #Kiptum
