DID YOU KNOW? Two Other Kenyans Who’ve Broken World Time Barriers Before Eliud Kipchoge

Eliud Kipchoge. [Photo: Courtesy]
Eliud Kipchoge is on a mission to break human limits by covering 42km race in less than 2 hours in a project dubbed INEOS 1:59 Challenge. If he succeeds, he shall have broken his own world record (2:1:39) and become the fastest ever human being for marathon. He shall have broken time barrier.

Ahead of the historic moment slated for October 12 in Vienna, everyone wants a piece of Kipchoge. Everyone has wished him good luck in his quest.

But did you know there are other Kenyans who had broken time barriers before Eliud Kipchoge?

Moses Kiptanui Kreedon
Moses Kiptanui.

Moses Kiptanui and Yobes Ondieki are the two Kenyan athletes who shocked the world in 1995 and 1993 respectively.

Kiptanui became the first athlete to break the 8-minute barrier for the 3000m Steeplechase at the Weltklasse GP at Zurich in 1995.

He is remembered as the ‘daddy’ of the steeplechase. Though he never won an Olympic gold medal he was the world’s leading steeplechaser from 1991 to 1995. He broke the world record multiple times and landed three world titles in the process (1991, 1993, 1995), but the 1995’s7:59.18 was the epitome.

Ondieki, on the other hand, became the first man to run the 10,000 metres in under 27 minutes in 1993. Just as he had done in winning the 1991 world 5,000m title, he ran harder and harder until there was nobody left to beat.

Image result for yobes ondieki
Yobes Ondieki

His final opponent was the clock, which ticked away the seconds towards 27 minutes as he strove down the final straight, arms pumping, grimacing, attempting to lengthen his normal pattering stride.

He stopped the clock at 26:58.38 to lower a world record which had been reduced to 27:07.91 just six days earlier by his compatriot, Richard Chelimo.

It was 28 years ago, then, that Ron Clarke of Australia had taken the 10,000m event into new territory by becoming the first man under 28 minutes in reducing his own world record to 27:39.4.

Although that kind of advance was no longer a possibility, Ondieki’s was a run to rank alongside Clarke’s. He reached 5,000m in 13:28 in company with fellow Kenyan William Sigei, the world cross country champion.

That was five seconds inside world record schedule. By 7,000 metres, Sigei was dropping away. At 9,000 Ondieki was eight seconds inside schedule; at the bell, he needed the last lap of just 70 seconds to become history’s first sub-27 minutes’ runner. He was not going to let that opportunity slip.

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