Kelvin Kiptum is Self-Coached?!?!?!?

I was definitely surprised to find that he has no coach and said he trains alone mostly. I did however see on Instagram a few pictures with Kiptum training from presumably a few years ago. One with Julien Wanders and Amanal Petros and another with a group with Eric Kiptanui. Considering those three other athletes train together out of Iten perhaps Kiptum has recently changed training locations.

Why does any distance runner need a coach? once you learn the basic principles involved, you know all you need to know. As they say, this ain’t rocket science.

Kiptum is clean as can be. The guy is just a natural runner, self coached and eating Ugali. This guy was born to run. The doping accusations are coming from fat freaks who struggle to waddle to the fridge. This man is so clean I would guess that Rekrunner would lick ice cream off of him.

• Except he wasn't completely off the radar as he has run some pretty impressive 'halfs'. This site was hyped up for a world record from Letesenbet Gidey based purely on her achievements at shorter distances, it's not unfathomable for an experienced half-marathoner to excel at the full distance. Y2 and Joyciline Jepkosgei examples.

What shocked me most is that 1. Training alone 2. No coach. Atypical of the best Kenyans. Technically, there'd be no one to blame if he were to get popped.

Kiptum: "I don't have a coach. I train alone."
Where do you train? "Chepkorio."

Good for him. I'm sure that many, even most runners do this.
I always did my own training and 90+ % alone even in high school and college.

Pros have coaches and teams now primarily because that's an easier way to get sponsored.

I coached myself to a 3:11 full thon on a much harder course. It's not that tough. Everything you need to know is on the message boards.

This thread isn't about whether he's clean or not. But how he can achieve what he did by himself.

PED availability and risk of getting caught is the same for everyone, so I would factor that out unless and until Kiptum gets busted.

It’s either talent or it’s possible he doped much earlier when he wasn’t being tested but retained the training adaptation from then.

Then why did you bring up PEDs in your opening post?

He seemed to be running very hard (of course), but also appeared to be comfortable enough to go faster if he was being pushed or pulled or paced.
Didn’t he jog a bit more after donning the flag? Typically when someone goes to the well, they don’t want to run another step. I was so tired watching I hardly remember him finishing….so I could be wrong

Again, irrelevant to this thread. Everyone's doping according to you lot. My point is: Kiptum's talent is terrifying regardless.

He is definitely a super responder.

Again you were discussing doping in the opening post and then you say the thread is not about that. Why the hell are you trying to police others when you yourself discussed it?

That is the Kenyan doping template.

1) Perform at a few low level races (mostly 10kms and half-marathon).

2) Use the prize money to go crazy on the EPO and run a fast time.

3) Start getting invitations to WMM, maybe win one.

4) Performance drops but still cashing in on appearance fees.

5) Constant DNFs or they finally get caught.

6) Starts to coach their wife/younger brother/random cousin and repeat the whole process.