Eliud Kipchoge Was Supposed to Win the Boston Marathon. What Went Wrong?

BOSTON — When Eliud Kipchoge arrived for the London Marathon in 2020, he had won 10 consecutive marathons, including an Olympic gold medal in 2016. He owned the world record, and he had also completed two unsanctioned marathons in a bid to become the first man to dip under the two-hour barrier, accomplishing the feat in October 2019.

In other words, Kipchoge had already established himself as a semi-mythical figure — and the greatest men’s marathoner in history — by the time he took to the course in London to defend his 2019 title. Fans fully expected the race to be another Kipchoge coronation. Why wouldn’t it be?

Kipchoge finished eighth that day, a shocking development in cold and rainy conditions. Kipchoge later told “Runner’s World” that he had developed a problem with his right ear and that he was “truly disappointed.”

“But this is sport,” he said at the time. “Today you are up, tomorrow you are down.”

Kipchoge managed to rebound from that subpar result by winning his next four marathons, claiming another Olympic title and breaking his own world record by 30 seconds. It turned out that he was still semi-mythical, after all.

His speed has become so ubiquitous that a company built an oversize treadmill that runs at 13 miles per hour so that weekend warriors can try to mimic his race pace for about 30 seconds.

London, though, offered an important lesson: No one, not even Kipchoge, wins every race. Sure enough, in his debut appearance at the Boston Marathon on Monday, it happened again: He lost.