London Press Conference Highlights: Brigid Kosgei Sounds Less Confident Than She Did A Year Ago, Could Ruth Chepngetich Spring The Upset?

By David Monti with Additions by LetsRun.com at the end.
(c) 2020 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

(01-Oct) — Sunday’s 40th Virgin Money London Marathon will see the first head-to-head marathon between world record holder Brigid Kosgei and reigning world champion Ruth Chepngetich, likely Kenyan teammates at next summer’s Tokyo Olympics. Those two aren’t the only two women from Kenya with a great chance of winning as they’ll be joined by reigning Olympic 5000 champ (and 2018 London champ) Vivian Cheruiyot in the London’s elite women’s field which will run in a separate, 19-lap race in advance of the men in St. James’s Park at 07:15 GMT. The athletes will run on a closed course and spectators will not be permitted.

Kosgei and Chepngetich, both 26, are under the same management (Rosa & Associates) and have the same shoe and apparel sponsor (Nike), but they don’t train together or even know each other very well. Kosgei trains at the original Rosa camp in Kapsait which sits at a oxygen-starved 2928m (9605 feet) above sea level, and she is coached by Eric Kimaiyo. Chepngetich trains in Ngong on the western edge of Nairobi at a still-high 1961m (6434 feet).

But both women are fast, very fast.

Chepngetich (left) and Kosgei (right) address the media ahead of Sunday’s race (Bob Martin for London Marathon Events)

Kosgei shattered Paula Radcliffe‘s 2003 marathon world record by 81 seconds at last October’s Bank of America Chicago Marathon, clocking a previously unimaginable 2:14:04. During her marathon career — which began unceremoniously in Porto, Portugal, in 2015 with a 2:47:59 victory — Kosgei has broken 2:21 five times, and run sub-2:20 three times. She has won seven marathons.

Chepngetich’s marathon career began with a bang when she won the 2017 Istanbul Marathon in a course record 2:22:36. She dropped under 2:20 for the first time the following year in the same race, clocking 2:18:35, then rallied back just 75 days later to run an improbable 2:17:08 in Dubai, the second fastest mark of 2019 (behind Kosgei’s world record) and the #4 time in history. She won the world title last October in Doha in brutally hot and humid conditions, winning by over a minute.

Speaking to the international media today via a Zoom conference call, both women were cautiously optimistic about Sunday’s race, but admitted that the pandemic had affected their training. Kosgei said more than once that she would give Sunday’s race her best effort, but that lowering her own world record wasn’t a priority.

“You know due to this pandemic I cannot say I’ll run this and this,” said Kosgei. She added: “We didn’t do a lot of training enough like last year. I want to try my best, only, on Sunday.”

Kosgei will be going for her fourth straight marathon victory. (Bob Martin for London Marathon Events)

Kosgei lives in Eldoret with her husband, Mathew Mitei, and twin children, Brian and Faith, but prefers the remote camp in Kapsait for training. There, she said, some of her runs take her up above 3000 meters during her long training weeks. She said that she only has a handful of training partners because of the pandemic.

“I’ve been training in a little group,” she said. “In some months we go back training alone, slowly, slowly. It affected most of us in Kenya.”

Chepngetich said she had been running 160 to 170 kilometers per week, but offered no details about her program. However, she said that the virus had altered her training plans.

“When coronavirus arrived to Kenya… everybody had to train alone,” she said.  “Everyone was training in isolation.”

While both women were previously named for the Kenyan Olympic team, Athletics Kenya could make changes between now and next summer. As such, both women want to keep up their excellent track record to assure selection.

“I will try my best in order to be selected for Olympics next year,” said Kosgei.

Besides Kosgei, Chepngetich and Cheruiyot (PB of 2:18:31), there are two other fast Kenyans in the field, Valary Aiyabei (2:19:10) and Edith Chelimo (debut; half-marathon best of 1:05:52). The two top Ethiopians are Ashete Bekere (2:20:14) and Alemu Megertu (2:21:10). Unfortunately, two other top-class Ethiopians, Roza Dereje and Degitu Azimeraw, withdrew from the race after being announced in August. Azimeraw’s pre-flight COVID test came back positive so she was not permitted to come to London and enter the race’s anti-COVID biosphere. Another dozen women in the field have run sub-2:30, but none of them can be expected to contend for the win.

For Kosgei, breaking the world record has inspired her to test the ultimate limits of her talent. She said last year after Chicago that “slowly by slowly” she could lower her own world record, and she reiterated that today.

“When I break it, the record, in Chicago last year I was really happy, happy,” Kosgei said. “It changed my entire career and made me to be more encouraged to do a lot of training, to focus on training, to try again to break the record again.”

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LRC addition

Does Chepngetich now have the upper hand?

While you can only gain so much from a pre-race press conference, the difference in tone between Kosgei ahead of 2019 London and today was striking. Last year, Kosgei was remarkably confident in her pre-race comments, saying that breaking 2:18 was “not hard” and “it’s easy for me to run 2:17.” Though she came short of that on race day, “only” running 2:18:20, she did so with an enormous negative split (71:38-66:42) which demonstrated she was capable of much quicker. Six months later, she smashed the world record with her 2:14:04 in Chicago.

Given that Kosgei entered 2019 London as a 2:18 marathoner and enters 2020 London as a 2:14 marathoner, one would expect her to have even more confidence than last year — so it does appear that her training has suffered during COVID. How much, exactly, will remain unknown until Sunday.

As for Chepngetich, while her training was altered ahead of London due to Covid-19 — she said was forced to run alone for several months — she seemed more optimistic about her chances. In a one-on-one interview after the main press conference, Chepngetich even said she thought her training for London was better than her training ahead of January’s Dubai Marathon, where she ran her personal best of 2:17:08. Chepngetich said the main reason for that was that she had a longer time to prepare — London will be her first marathon since September 2019, whereas she had less than 11 weeks between the Istanbul Marathon in November 2018 and Dubai in January 2019. The counterpoint: coming off a 2:18 in Istanbul meant she was already at a high level of fitness when she began her training for Dubai. With no spring marathon and the difficulties of training during COVID-19, she likely wasn’t at quite the same level when she began her London buildup.

LRC analysis: We always hesitate to take pre-race quotes at full value as most athletes are reluctant to lay their cards on the table, but based on our conversations with both athletes today, Chepngetich certainly seems more pleased with her preparations than Kosgei. While the gap in their pbs is substantial, it’s not insurmountable. And if Chepngetich truly is in better shape than she was in Dubai, she’s definitely capable of beating Kosgei if Kosgei isn’t at her best — and it sounds like that’s the case.

LetsRun.com’s coverage of the 2020 London Marathon

LRC Men’s Preview: What to Expect from Eliud Kipchoge & Kenenisa Bekele in the Race of the Year
LRC Women’s Preview: WR Holder Brigid Kosgei Vs. World Champ Ruth Chepngetich In Clash Of World #1 Vs. World #2
*TV/streaming information *All LRC 2020 London Marathon coverage