A terrible and mocking fate took the life of Kenyan marathon champion Kelvin Kiptum, just a few months after the world record in the speciality with which he had ousted his idol and international icon Eliud Kipchoge.
The athlete from Kenya's Rift Valley, where the best cross-country and middle-distance runners come from, died on Sunday evening near the town of Kaptagat, on board the car he was driving, which allegedly ran off the road and hit a tree. At Kiptum's side was his coach, Gervais Hakizimana, who also died in the impact, which does not appear to have been caused by any other means. Also with them in the vehicle was a woman, who was admitted to the Eldoret hospital in serious condition.

The Kenyan marathon runner, who had set a new world record of 2 hours and 35 seconds at the Chicago Marathon last October and who was given as a big favourite for the Olympic title at the Paris Games this summer, had announced that he would attempt to become the first man to run an official marathon under the symbolic two-hour barrier in Rotterdam on 14 April.

Sadly, Kiptum, a former goat herder born near Eldoret, who had just tasted international glory, is not the first great Kenyan running athlete to die young. In 2011, at the same age, the Olympic champion at the Beijing Games, Samuel Wanjiru, had tragically passed away after a fall from a balcony, while the promising 25-year-old marathon runner Agnes Tirop was found in a pool of blood in her home in Iten, not far from where Kiptum was training. Her husband is on trial for feminicide.