With Kipchoge’s triumph, Kenya became the first nation to win both the men’s and the women’s marathon golds; Jemima Jelagat Sumgong had won the women’s last week.
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He timed 2hr 8min 44sec on a rainy but picturesque course that snaked below Rio’s mountain-top Christ the Redeemer statue, winning by more than a minute.
Eventually, Lilesa did enough to clinch the silver medal, while Rupp clung on to bronze despite a mammoth late effort from Eritrea’s world marathon champion Ghirmay Ghebreslassie. Kipchoge won the race with a time of 2 hours 8 minutes 44 seconds. The Kenyan upped the pace around the 30km mark, starting with a group of a dozen runners about him who slowly dropped away one by one until he ran the final kilometres alone. That last mile separated him from everyone and effectively ended the race.
RIO DE JANEIRO – Red-hot favorite Eliud Kipchoge stormed to a runaway gold medal in a wet men’s marathon Sunday, the final day of competition at the Rio Olympics.
Rupp, a 30-year-old Portland, Oregon, native, also placed fifth in the 10,000-meter race in Rio. Kipchoge really motored to finish in under 2:09. Keflezighi had stomach trouble and had to stop seven times but refused to quit.
Meanwhile, silver medallist Lilesa protested the brutal police crackdowns in Ethiopia of the Oromo people by crossing his arms above his head when he crossed the finish line and later at a press conference.
Paul Pollock was the top Irish runner in the Olympic Games marathon with the Holywood athlete finishing 32nd in Rio.
Mo Farah of Great Britain completed a historic double-double. He joins medalist Frank Shorter, who took gold in 1972 and silver in 1976.
Rupp’s medal continues the strong US presence in track and field at these Games – 32 medals – particularly in middle distance and distance races.
Ward, who finished third at the Olympic Marathon Trials, already likes what he has seen from Rupp. Later on Saturday evening, Paul Chelimo was second in the 5,000, the first American to medal in that event since 1964. The one color of Olympic medal he lacked in his illustrious career finally has been captured. The victory came the day after the USA women’s team also won the Olympic bronze medal.
“It feels great”, he said after winning Kenya’s sixth gold medal of the Games, all of them in athletics.
But Kipchoge stole the show on Sunday.
Kipchoge, 31, has an idea about the American’s potential: “I expect Rupp to run the fastest time ever in the marathon”, he told NBC. Just four months ago, he almost broke the world record for the marathon, coming in at an impossibly fast 2:03.05-just eight seconds faster and he would have made absolute history.
“I know there’s a couple of people in front of me who I would have wanted to be closer to”.
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A blustery storm swept in before the start of the closing ceremonies, where Rio de Janeiro was to hand the torch to Tokyo, host of the 2020 Games.
