World Record holder Eliud Kipchoge ’s hopes of becoming the first man to win all six of the World Majors suffered a dent on Monday evening as he lost the bid to clinch the Boston Marathon title on debut, Evans Chebet defending his crown with a calculated run.
The defending champion clocked 2:05:54 for back to back titles, as 2021 champion Benson Kipruto finished third in 2:06:06 as Tanzania’s Gabriel Geay finished second in 2:06:04 after beating him with a sprint finish.
Chebet became the first person in 15 years to win back to back titles in Boston, and overall becomes the sixth person in history to do so.
The last person to win back to back titles was Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot who won in 2007 and 2008.
Kipchoge looked to be struggling in the early wet, windy and humid conditions in Boston and dropped off the leading pack with about 10km left, a leading pack of about five athletes pulling away.
His efforts at putting up a fight to narrow the gap which was growing didn’t end up successful, and with five kilometres left, it was clear that the battle was between defending champion Chebet, predecessor Kipruto and Tanzanian Geay.
He ended up strutting home at sixth spot, clocking 2:09:23, the slowest marathon time in his career.
Kipchoge had looked okay throughout the race as he slowly mustered the terrain from the start, strutting around the leading pack from gun off.
He was shoulder to shoulder with Kipruto as they did the first 10km of the race in 28:52 and he led the leading pack through the halfway mark in 62:19.
At the 25km mark. he was still on the front as they went through in1:14:04, shoulder to shoulder with Tanzanian Gabriel.
But, at the 30km mark is when the trouble started for the world record holder. Gabriel decided to inject some pace and disrupt the leading pack which had now whittled to around seven athletes.
The injection pf pace, unexpectedly, seemed to have caught Kipchoge unawares as he failed to launch a response.
he had dropped all the way down to eighth at the 35km mark, being a whole minute and 13 seconds behind Kipruto who had sprung to the lead.
The race now whittled down to a three-man war; Kipruto, Gabriel and Chebet squaring off.
Gabriel took the lead, a few paces ahead of the two Kenyan training partners as he looked to disrupt the form books.
But, with almost 4km left to run, Mutai crossed over to Kipruto, with the duo who train at the 2RunningClub communicating before injecting some pace.
Mutai was the strongest of the two and he gave the final two kilometres a push, defending his title.
Albert Korir was fourth (2:08:01) while John Korir was ninth (2:10:04), five Kenyans finishing in the top 10.
