The world marathon record took a shave of 15 seconds to be broken in Berlin title on Sunday. Wilson Kipsang, 31, of Kenya clocked a time of two hours, three minutes, and 23 seconds to better the previous mark set by his country man Patrick Makau two years ago in Berlin. Then Makau ran 2:03:38.
Wilson entered into the sport of domain of Kenya’s sporting excellence in 2007 when he ran 10,000m before moving on into the longer distances of 10km and 15km respectively. His participation in a series of half marathons prepared him well for his first debut marathon race in 2010 in Paris and he finished in third place. His first victory in the marathon event symbolically took place in Germany, Frankfurt precisely in 2010 and has since added six more victories in the event. At the last Olympics games, he came third in the same event and has enjoyed a fairly good season so far this year.
In Berlin, Wilson beat his countrymen Eliud Kipchoge (2:04:05) and Geoffrey Kipsang (2:06:26) to second and third respectively in this year’s marathon.
He was reported to have trained specifically to break the world record in Berlin. His training, tactics and desire were on their way to reality as he took control of the race in the final 10km, breaking away from the leading pack as the tempo dropped.
“I’m very happy that I have won and broken the world record,” Kipsang said.
“I was really inspired by [fellow Kenyan] Paul Tergat when he broke the world record here 10 years ago and I’m very happy that I was in a position to break the record on the same course.”
His victory takes his total marathon wins to seven since competing in his first in Paris three years ago.
Kipsang won the London marathon last year. The Berlin win was his first marathon victory this year. Despite being among the favourites, he only managed to finish fifth in the London event in April.
