Kipchoge Keino honoured for his outstanding contribution

 

Attendees at World Athletics Heritage Mile Night in Monaco. [Philippe Fitte, World Athletics]

Kipchoge Keino climbed onto the podium inside Le Meridien Hotel with a steady gait as his name was read out with the constellation of athletics greats clearly still awed at his achievements on the track.

Just ahead of him was the huge and gangly frame Jim Ryun the American great. They hugged heartily as the assembled guests, including the World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, watched in awe two men who enthralled the world as they engaged on the track in 1,500m and the metric mile (1,609.347m) in the late 60s through to early 70s.

It was the legendary Kenyan Kipchoge, who supplanted the American in the distance - the height of which played out during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City’s Estadio Olimpico Universitario track.

Aged 27 years at the time, Kipchoge scorched the track to upset Ryun to win the 1,500m gold, a feat that is widely believed to have marked the birth of Kenya as an athletics superpower. The New York Times described it as the first chapter in Kenya’s success story in distance running.

Kipchoge did not just win the gold on the day, he crushed Ryun when he breasted the tape with a 20m gap between them - later recorded as the widest margin of victory in that event in Olympic history.

On Thursday night here in Monaco, a smartly dressed Kipchoge and with characteristic eloquence in his acceptance remarks received World Athletics Heritage Plaque awarded for outstanding contribution to the worldwide history and development of athletics.

“I am happy to be recognised for my passion. What happened then is still very vivid in my mind. I am happy that what I did then has impacted positively around the world,” said Kipchoge.