April best of SA, Kipchoge fulfils medal set
Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge showed his class to claim gold in the men’s marathon at the Rio Olympics on Sunday.
|||Cape Town – South African stars Lusapho April and Sibusiso Nzima were part of the lead group initially, but Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge showed his class to claim gold in the men’s marathon at the Rio Olympics on Sunday.
Nzima kept up with the somewhat sluggish pace for a good part of the race, and was listed in fourth position at the 25km mark as he trailed Ethiopian Lemi Berhanu, Bahrain’s Alemu Bekele and Peru’s Cristhian Pacheco in 1 hour 18.12 seconds in cool and wet conditions on the final day of the 2016 Olympics.
But the lead bunch eventually dropped off, and by the 30km stage, April had passed his compatriot to be in 17th position. That is also when the 31-year-old Kipchoge made his move as he caught up with Berhanu and fellow Ethiopian Feyisa Lilesa.
Berhanu couldn’t last the pace, though, as America Galen Rupp moved up in a breakaway group that ended the chances of the other athletes to get a medal.
It was a race for the gold by then, with Kipchoge and Lilesa getting rid of Rupp soon enough. There was some drama as Lilesa spiked Kipchoge, sparking wild gesturing from the Kenyan, and it resulted in Kipchoge displaying his unhappiness by speeding away from Lilesa to open up a 36-second lead with just over 2km to go.
A former track star who won silver and bronze medals in the 5 000m at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2004 Athens Games respectively, Kipchoge took the final step to gold by waving his arms in celebration as he crossed the line in 2:08.44, which was well off his personal best of 2:03.05.
But that didn’t matter as he now had the full set of Olympic medals and had managed to hold off Lilesa, who claimed silver in 2:09.54, while Rupp produced a new personal best of 2:10.05 to clinch bronze.
April led the way for the South Africans, but faded to 24th in 2:15.24, over four seconds slower than his 2016 best of 2:11.27.
Nzima would’ve been disappointed to have fallen back so dramatically after being in fourth position at 25km, and ended 97th in 2:25.33. The third South African, Lungile Gongqa, did not finish, and was last recorded in 100th position at the 30km mark.
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