Before success there is always a struggle to get to the top that most legends will tell you require persistence and hard work. Eliud Kipchoge is indeed a star on the tracks but he has had his failure days too.
He made his debut on the 2010 IAAF Diamond League by winning the 5000 m Qatar Athletic Super Grand Prix in a meet record time.
Kipchoge then went on to enter the Carlsbad 5000 in CA, USA. The Carlsbad 5 km road race is the venue for the world best times for a 5k road race for men and women respectively.
The fastest to cover the track was Sammy Kipketer in 2000, with 12:59.5 min. Kipchoge made a world best attempt and although he won the race, weather affected his chances and he finished in 13:11, the fourth-fastest ever for the course up to that point in time.
In the first athletics final of the 2010 commonwealth Games he attempted to win the 5000 m Commonwealth title. Ugandan runner Moses Kipsiro held a slender lead over him in the final stages of the race and Kipchoge ended up in second place, taking the silver medal some seven hundredths of a second behind.
He flew back to Europe immediately after to take part in the Belgrade Race through History the following day. His shoe fell off in the first kilometre and, after putting it back on, he made up much ground on the field to eventually take second place two seconds behind Josphat Menjo.
At the start of 2011, he won the short race at the Great Edinburgh Cross Country, ahead of Asbel Kiprop He attempted to retain his title at the Carlsbad 5000 in April but came a close second behind Dejen Gebremeskel.
In May he raced the 3000 metres (finished third) in Doha, with a time of 7:27.66 and ranked him as the 12th-fastest at the distance up to this point.
Kipchoge was chosen to represent Kenya at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics and reached the 5000 m final for the fifth consecutive time, although he only managed seventh place on this occasion.
Kipchoge began the race with three pacemakers dedicated to him. After 5 km in the run, the gap between him and the Kipsang group was 9 seconds.
After 15 km in the race, two of the pacemakers were unable to continue pacing him. The remaining pacemaker dropped out after 25 kilometers, leaving Kipchoge to cover the final 17 km alone.
Kipchoge had planned to run with a pacemaker though 30 km (rather than 25 km); this adversity “was unfortunate,” he reflected post-race, “but I had to believe”. Kipchoge accelerated, covering the second half (1:00:34) of the race faster than the first half (1:01:06). In sunny weather conditions, the temperature was 14 °C (57 °F) during the start and 18 °C (64 °F) when Kipchoge crossed the finish line.
The prize money Kipchoge made for his Berlin run altogether was 120.000 €. This comes down to 30.000 € for finishing in less than 2:04 hours, 40.000 for his win and additionally 50.000 € for a new world record. The world record done during this run is the 8th world record in the men’s marathon at the Berlin marathon in a 20 years time frame.
The list of his success is currently endless and still inspiring.World marathon record holder Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya and 2018 triple and long jump Diamond League champion Caterine Ibarguen of Colombia are the 2018 IAAF Male and Female Athletes of the Year, as each beat out four other finalists to claim the honor for the first time at the IAAF Athletics Awards on Tuesday in Monaco.