He led the last few laps after the rabbits dropped and he looked very relaxed the whole way. Fast last 200 and he had plenty left as he crossed the line. Maybe this will be his year considering Bekele has been hurt.
He led the last few laps after the rabbits dropped and he looked very relaxed the whole way. Fast last 200 and he had plenty left as he crossed the line. Maybe this will be his year considering Bekele has been hurt.
Always been a huge fan of Kipchoge ever since he destroyed Bekele and ElG in that world championship 5000m!
Kipchoge has the talent and ability to be the best 5K runner in the world but crumbles whenever he faces Bekele and sihine.Even in the kenyan championships when he has to face top dogs he cracks under pressure.Kipchoge is one athlete that needs alot of luck on the day.
Can we call him the most consistent Kenyan around?
2003 7:30.91 2 VD Bruxelles 5 Sep
2004 7:27.72 1 VD Bruxelles 3 Sep
2005 7:28.56 1 GP Doha 13 May
2006 7:30.48 3 Super GP Doha 12 May
2007 7:33.06 1 GP Doha 11 May
2008 7:33.14 4 GP Doha 9 May
2009 7:28.37 1 GP Doha 8 May
2003 12:52.61 WJR WYB19,18 3 Bislett Oslo 27 Jun
2004 12:46.53 1 GGala Roma 2 Jul
2005 12:50.22 1 VD Bruxelles 26 Aug
2006 12:54.94 6 GGala Roma 14 Jul
2007 12:50.38 2 VD Bruxelles 14 Sep
2008 13:02.06 1 GSpike Ostrava 12 Jun
He raced pretty well in Beijing last year (silver medal) I thought. Bekele was just plain unbeatable there. Also not too bad in Osaka either(Lagat was savvy and cut him off otherwise he might have gotten gold).
I am also a big fan of Kipchoge. He's very fun to watch because he races hard and just competes and competes all the way to the finish. An amazing racer, who always comes back for more!
2006 12:54.94 6 GGala Roma 14 Jul
running 12:54 and getting 6th???? jesus!
I like watching Kipchoge, too. He always pushes it really hard the last 100.
I haven't heard/noticed that he's a headcase in the sense that he crumbles when faced with competition, but I have heard that he got pretty lazy after winning the WC gold. Not sure if that is corroborated by his 12:46 the next year, but maybe he just got cocky and then got a little lazy in between Olympics.
He's ended up with a damn fine resume. WC gold, Olympic silver, and Olympic bronze all in the 5000. If he could beat Bekele in the 5k this year and follow through with some fast times next year, he'd have to be considered right up there with Bekele for best 5k runner of this decade.
Kipchoge seems far from a headcase to me, he beat Bekele and El G in 2003 as a junior. He has always stepped and tried to beat Bekele on the track, and even in cross. Bekele is just a better runner all in all, other than that Kipchoge can and has beaten everyone else with consistency.
In point of fact Kipchoge may be one of the best competitors I've seen, he has a complete arsenal of tools, and uses lots of different tactics, kick, drive, front run, surge, he is a very active racer. And he is a tough finisher as well.
Mackenzie wrote:
Kipchoge seems far from a headcase to me, he beat Bekele and El G in 2003 as a junior. He has always stepped and tried to beat Bekele on the track, and even in cross. Bekele is just a better runner all in all, other than that Kipchoge can and has beaten everyone else with consistency.
In point of fact Kipchoge may be one of the best competitors I've seen, he has a complete arsenal of tools, and uses lots of different tactics, kick, drive, front run, surge, he is a very active racer. And he is a tough finisher as well.
He was no junior in 2003. He's probably 30 right now.
Carson Dwellman wrote:
Mackenzie wrote:Kipchoge seems far from a headcase to me, he beat Bekele and El G in 2003 as a junior. He has always stepped and tried to beat Bekele on the track, and even in cross. Bekele is just a better runner all in all, other than that Kipchoge can and has beaten everyone else with consistency.
In point of fact Kipchoge may be one of the best competitors I've seen, he has a complete arsenal of tools, and uses lots of different tactics, kick, drive, front run, surge, he is a very active racer. And he is a tough finisher as well.
He was no junior in 2003. He's probably 30 right now.
He's 32 years old.
I know his uncle quite well and he tells me that he (Kip) was born in June 1977.
NativeSon wrote:
He's 32 years old.
I know his uncle quite well and he tells me that he (Kip) was born in June 1977.
LOL! Thanks for the great firsthand info. That's pretty old.
You also know that he is from the Talai clan same as Koitalel Arap samoei right?
fast times wrote:
Kipchoge has the talent and ability to be the best 5K runner in the world but crumbles whenever he faces Bekele and sihine.Even in the kenyan championships when he has to face top dogs he cracks under pressure.Kipchoge is one athlete that needs alot of luck on the day.
actually he probably has performed BETTER and more consistently than anyone save Bekele or Shihine over the last 10 yrs. I also think he performed about where a 12:46 runner would when the WR is 12:37.
_>_>_>
He won a gold medal at the 5000m final of the 2003 World Championships, beating runner-up Hicham El Guerrouj by four hundredths of a second, by 12:52.79 and 12:52.83. [1]
He won a bronze medal at the 5000m final of the 2004 Athens Olympics, behind Hicham El Guerrouj and Kenenisa Bekele.[citation needed]
He also won the bronze in the 3000 metres indoor at the 2006 World Championships in Moscow.
On 31 December 2006 he ran a new World Record over 10 kilometres road race in the San Silvestre Vallence race in Madrid. In a heavy battle between him and Zersenay Tadese he finished in 26.54 minutes, breaking Haile Gebrselassie's record of 27.02 minutes for a road race (but not a track race). Tadese got the same time, but finished slightly behind Kipchoge. [2]
He won a silver medal at the 5000 m final of the 2007 World Championships at Osaka in 13:46.00, behind Bernard Lagat (13:45.87). [3]
During the 2008 Olympics held in Beijing, China, he won a silver medal in the 5000m event with a time of 13:02.80 which was better than the previous Olympic record of 13:05.59 but it was not enough to match Kenenisa Bekele's pace, who won the gold medal for this race. [
_>_>_>
SO ...
2003 GOLD ahead of the best EVER
2004 BRONZE behind the TWO best runners EVER
Early 2006 BRONZE at indoor WC
2007 silver behind one of the best ever (winner of several medals)
2008 SILVER behind what some have called the best race they have ever seen.
Summary: In six yrs inclusive ('03-'08) there were FIVE Global championships outdoors, he medaled in FOUR of them, beaten only by Bekele, ElG and Lagat in all four finals. It appears from this that the only runner he hasn't beaten in a Championship is Bekele. Get in line, Only ElG ever has.
Only on Letsrun would this be considered "crumbling" and "needing luck". If Bekele was never born he would probably be a double gold medallist at the Olympics or even three GOLDS at different global championships.
Look, of course he has had a great career, but realize that after he beat Bekele and El G, 2 of the greatest runners in history, as a supposed junior, running 12:52 and running a near 52 last lap.... the bar was set pretty high for the rest of career. Compared to THAT race at THAT age with THAT kick, I'd say he underperformed that rest of the career. He's had a few truly top races, and some real dogs actually. He has been fairly consistent, but so, so far behind someone like Bekele or Geb, or El G, or even Tergat. Yes, of course that is comparing him to the Gods, but that was the talent level he appeared to have, since he had JUST BEATEN 2 of the Gods as a 19 y.o. I've seen him run some pretty bad races on the circuit. But he does keep bouncing back to run some pretty damn good ones too. Hopefully he does have a top season this year.
kipchoge is like Asafa powel and Kipchirchir Komen.These dudes cannot perform under pressure.
Sir Lance-alot wrote:
Look, of course he has had a great career, but realize that after he beat Bekele and El G, 2 of the greatest runners in history, as a supposed junior, running 12:52 and running a near 52 last lap.... the bar was set pretty high for the rest of career. Compared to THAT race at THAT age with THAT kick, I'd say he underperformed that rest of the career. He's had a few truly top races, and some real dogs actually. He has been fairly consistent, but so, so far behind someone like Bekele or Geb, or El G, or even Tergat. Yes, of course that is comparing him to the Gods, but that was the talent level he appeared to have, since he had JUST BEATEN 2 of the Gods as a 19 y.o. I've seen him run some pretty bad races on the circuit. But he does keep bouncing back to run some pretty damn good ones too. Hopefully he does have a top season this year.
This is only becuase you are stupid. HE won that race by beating ElG in one of about three important races HE EVER LOST. Ditto for Bekele. And he beat them by very little. Then you expect him to go on beating them. History has shown us that Bekele is the current king at whatever he decides to run. ElG was also the king of his era in a way so dominant that we haven't seen it in the 1500 before or since.
IT seems almost like you are using reverse logic as in "he beat them in one race and because of how good history exposed them to be ... he should have beaten them consistently." Well, then "they" would not have been as good as they are.
Kipchoge is not on the short list of all-time greats with the WR setters (ElG, Morceli, Komen, Geb, Kiptanui, Bekele, etc.) nor is he on the list of multi-gold winning doublers (Viren, Yifter, Bekele, ElG), nor would I expect him to be.
He is on a second tier just slightly below them, a place where there are gold-medallists who never doubled, or won many medals but few of them gold. He is just where I would think someone who is 7 secs off the 3k WR and 9 secs off the 5k WR would be.
You are looking at this backwards as if that one race determines the rest of his trajectory ... it doesn't, he just got lucky that he was there and in best shape and Bekele and ElG were not at their best at 5k yet.
And get a clue, there is no way he was a junior then. Any Kenyan who can run under 13:30, but has no other international experience in the open ranks that could prove otherwise, is then given documentation saying that he is 17 yrs old. That way if he runs 13:10 that year dumb people like you will believe that an 18 yr old coudl actually do that and then they could run sub-13 when they are allegedly 19 ( and still a "junior" -- woo-hoo). If they don't improve much they will never make any international teams and they are still fast but nobody will take any notice of them, and their supposed "jumior status" is never even an issue.
I watched it happen over and over the last 15 yrs .. the WJR for 3k/5k/10k has steadily dropped much faster than even the improbable rate that the WRs have dropped. Now they have gotten very close to the WRs because they have gotten very good at moving someone from very good to near the world's best very fast.
Geb is the only runner I have ever seen who was amazing in a World Junior Championship ('93) and then continued on for the 11-15 yrs you would expect someone who was runnign the best times in world history at 18 or 19 to keep doing. He is either the age they say he is and his birthdate is accurate, or he really is 40 like some people say.
NativeSon wrote:
Carson Dwellman wrote:He was no junior in 2003. He's probably 30 right now.
He's 32 years old.
I know his uncle quite well and he tells me that he (Kip) was born in June 1977.
So that made him a 25/26 year old junior?? Wow...
why is this a surprise to anyone? jesus, this is standard practice. i know someone married to a top east african, i made the comment about him being much younger than her, and her comment was "well, not exactly" - his passport and actual age are off by about 5 years. this whole junior bit is a joke and westerners are suckas.
piedmontcat wrote:
So that made him a 25/26 year old junior?? Wow...
piedmontcat wrote:
NativeSon wrote:He's 32 years old.
I know his uncle quite well and he tells me that he (Kip) was born in June 1977.
So that made him a 25/26 year old junior?? Wow...
Hey blokes,
I didn't know that osme of the guys here took me seriously.
I was only trying to liven up the debate.
I was making my assertion in good jest.
I do not know Kipchoge, neither do I know his uncle.
I do not know whether he has ever falsified his age. I take everything I read about him at face value.
I believe that he is what (in terms of age) he claims to be.
It was all made out of bantering.
Peace!!!!!!!!!!!