Toughest career race doesn’t worry Uganda's Kiprotich

As far as preparations go, Stephen Kiprotich has very few excuses ahead of his Olympic marathon title defence on Sunday.

“I think I have prepared enough. I can say I am ready,” Kiprotich said after landing in Rio on Tuesday night.

The champion has put in two months of residential training in Kenya while his Ugandan teammates Jackson Kiprop and Solomon Mutai prepared from Kapchorwa because they couldn’t afford the bill of staying across the border. Before the 2012 Olympics in London, Kiprotich spent four uninterrupted months of training in Kenya.

“I can’t complain because I have done whatever I am supposed to do before coming here,” Kiprotich, bidding to become the third ever runner to defend the Olympic marathon title, added.

A surprise winner in London four years ago, Kiprotich will now be the prime target for the other 158 runners as they attempt to claim his crown.

Since his Olympic feat, Kiprotich has not recorded any other major triumph and faces some of the fastest marathoners on Sunday.

Among the top contenders for the gold is his Kenyan friend and training partner Eliud Kipchoge, who came so close to breaking the world record by posting 2:03:05, the second fastest time ever, in April.

Kipchoge’s teammate Stanley Biwott has the second fastest time this year at 2:03:51, almost three minutes faster than Kiprotich’s lifetime best performance of 2:06:33. Kiprotich though hates discussing times in championship marathons.

“You see, people forget that the people I beat in London were also very strong. They had run some of the fastest times in the world before the Games,” noted Kiprotich, 27. In that race, Kiprotich relegated two-time world champion Abel Kirui to silver while Wilson Kipsang, a former world record holder, took the bronze.

“In a championship like this, you can’t say you are a favourite. I am the champion but I don’t know whether I will win. My duty is to run as hard as I can because I don’t know how strong my opponents will be on the day,” he said.

Although he has never competed in South America, Kiprotich has had little complaints about Rio’s weather even though it sometimes gets unbearably hot for fellow Ugandans.

During the women’s marathon last Sunday, temperatures rose to 30 degrees celicious and many competitors, including Uganda’s Adero Nyakisi, who finished 68th, could not cope. The men will run under more bearable conditions with the latest weather forecast suggesting 20 degrees and chances of a morning drizzle.

FASTEST MARATHON TIMES
Dennis Kimetto (Kenya) 2:02:57
Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) 2:03:05
Emmanuel Mutai (Kenya) 2:03:13
Wilson Kipsang (Kenya) 2:03:23
Patrick Makau (Kenya) 2:03:38
Stanley Biwott (Kenya) 2:03:51
KIPROTICH’S BEST 2:06:33