Eliud Kipchoge smashes marathon world record in Berlin

To the likes of Bob Beamon and Usain Bolt, we can now add Eliud Kipchoge – athletes whose feats are so unthinkable, so incomprehensible, that they are hard to fathom.

On a glorious Sunday morning in Berlin, the greatest marathon runner of all time became that bit greater.

Already the winner of his past eight marathons – including ­Olympic gold and three victories in London – the only thing to have eluded Kipchoge was Dennis Kimetto’s world record of two hours, two minutes and 57 seconds set in the German capital in 2014.

Kipchoge, 33, did not just beat it, he destroyed it. Shattered it. Put it so far out of reach it is difficult to envisage anyone surpassing it for years to come.

His incredible winning time of 2hr 1min 39sec was a full 78 ­seconds better than the previous mark – the first time the world record had been lowered by more than a minute in a race for 39 years and the single greatest improvement for 51 years.

Humans are not supposed to do this type of thing. But over the past few years, Kipchoge has made it abundantly clear he is not restricted by the body’s limitations imposed on the rest of the world. The ­Kenyan is unique.

Even for those considered the greatest in history, marathon world records are not broken without favourable conditions and the weather in Berlin on Sunday morning was near perfect. A light dusting of cloud provided a haze through which the mid-September sun shone and wind was at a minimum.

Pre-race talk had focused on the battle between Kipchoge and ­Wilson Kipsang – also a previous marathon world record holder – but that head-to-head was over ­before it had even begun.

Kipchoge had already pulled clear at 5km and by the halfway stage the margin from first to ­second was already more than a minute. Kipchoge’s time at that point was 61min 6sec and he was running at such speed that two of the three pacemakers employed to help him on his world record quest had been forced to drop out.

Only one remained, but he could manage just 10 more minutes ­before also falling by the wayside – something that Kipchoge later shrugged off as “unfortunate”. That left him more than 10 miles to run solo, just one man against the clock.

Which is when the incredible happened: he sped up. Running as though the pacemakers had been holding him back, Kipchoge ­completed the second half of the race in a barely conceivable 60min 33sec. Still full of beans as he was roared through the Brandenburg Gate, the broad smile of his ­appeared and the celebrations were worthy of his astonishing achievement, punching the air while sprinting up and down beyond the finish line as though he had just emerged fresh from bed.

For context, his winning time was the equivalent of running every 100m in 17.3sec, 800m in 2min 18.39sec, or 5km in 14min 24.91sec. Just think of that next time you head out for a morning run.

“I lack the words to describe how I feel,” said Kipchoge, whose ­winning margin over Amos Kipruto in second place was almost five minutes. “I am so happy.

“It was really hard, but I was ­prepared to run my own race early, so I wasn’t surprised to be alone.

“I am just so incredibly happy to have finally run the world record as I never stopped having belief in myself.”

A double Olympic and world medallist over 5,000m, it is over the marathon distance that ­Kipchoge has flourished in recent years. He has now broken 2hr 5min on eight occasions and last year came within 25 seconds of ­becoming the first man to go below two hours under controlled ­conditions as part of a Nike project.

With Sunday’s world record now added to the unofficial time he ran in that Nike experiment, he joked that his next ambition ­requires him to run slower to ­complete an extraordinary set: “I have run 2.00, 2.01, 2.03, 2.04 and 2.05. The next season I want to run 2.02.”

Gladys Cherono made it a Kenyan double in Berlin, beating a strong women’s field to triumph in a course record 2hr 18min 11sec, but it will be Kipchoge’s performance that lives long in the memory.

Evolution suggests athletic improvement should come in steady increments, but every now and then someone comes along who re-writes what was thought humanly possible. Kipchoge is one of those people and Sunday morning was that moment.