Double Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge spoke to BBC Sport Africa and notably spoke of the death threats that have surrounded his family since the death of his compatriot, Kelvin Kiptum.
It was with emotion that Eliud Kipchoge, double Olympic marathon champion, spoke to BBC Sport Africa on Tuesday. The former world record holder in the discipline spoke, with great concern, of the death threats that have weighed on his family since the death of his compatriot Kelvin Kiptum. Some believed that Eliud Kipchoge was part of a plot to kill the marathon world record holder.
“I received a lot of bad things: they will burn the (training) camp, they will burn my investments in the city, they will burn my house, they will burn my family,” described Eliud Kipchoge about what he could receive as messages.
The circumstances of Kelvin Kiptum’s death remain unclear but nothing links them to Kipchoge.
“Your father killed someone”
If the Kenyan considers himself happy to know that his daughter is in boarding school and therefore does not have access to social networks, he regrets on the other hand that his sons can hear the horrors that some people say about him. “It’s difficult for my boys to hear ‘Your father killed someone’,” confides the medalist. Since then, he no longer has the same life and feels obliged to forbid certain things from his children: “Sometimes they ride bikes, but we had to stop them because you never know what will happen. “
This episode directly disrupted the daily life of the Kenyan runner, who did not change his training location. On the other hand, he estimates that he has lost “around 90%” of his friends since the death of his compatriot. “It was really painful for me to learn that the bad words were coming from them from my own people, from my training comrades, from those with whom I am in contact,” Kipchoge lamented.
Its performance impacted
Even if Eliud Kipchoge refuses to delete his social media accounts, he believes that these threats have a direct impact on his performance, three months before the Olympic marathon in Paris. On March 3, at the Tokyo marathon, he finished in 10th place, his lowest ranking since the start of his career in 2013: “It’s the worst position I’ve ever had.”
Despite everything, the Kenyan, selected for the 2024 Olympics, is totally focused on the Olympic marathon, scheduled for August 10 and thus writing his name even further in history by winning a third consecutive Olympic gold medal. Separately, the Kenyan athlete welcomed the International Olympic Committee’s announcement that it plans to “respond proactively and at scale” to protect athletes from online abuse during Paris 2024. This comes a little late for the former marathon world record holder.
