President Uhuru Kenyatta has congratulated double Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge when he won the ANOC Award yesterday.
Kipchoge, who holds thw world marathon record was voted as the best athlete during the Olympic Games held in Tokyo, Japan and the a global recognition of Kenya’s prominence as a sporting nation.
He faced off with Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei who finally won two gold medals in 5000m and 10,000m at Tokyo Olympics games in August.
Kipchoge in his acceptance speech said, “It is an honour to win the ANOC Award for the Best Male Athlete at the Tokyo Olympics. With so many beautiful performances by so many athletes, I am proud to be the recipient of this award.
Kipchoge joined two legends who have won an Olympic medal two times. Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila was the first person to win two times the Olympic marathon medal when he won his first gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome while running barefoot then in 1964 he won his second gold medal.
East German Waldemar Cierpinski, won at the Montreal 1976 and Moscow 1980
Kipchoge’s margin of victory of 80 seconds was the biggest in an Olympic marathon since Frank Shorter’s win at Munich 1972.