Eliud Kipchoge vs Kenenisa Bekele| Predicting the greatest Marathon showdown

In April 2020 the world is set to witness the greatest marathon Showdown of modern times. The world record holder Eliud Kipchoge, will go up against the Second fastest marathoner ever in history, Kenenisa Bekele. 

This showdown is set to light up the streets of London, as both men will look to rekindle a well-known rivalry.

There is no doubt that it will be an exciting tussle with fast times, but the only uncertain thing, is who will be victorious at the end of this grueling 42 kilometers. This is why today we will be taking a look at all the relevant factors to decide who is more likely to come out on top.

Eliud and Bekele have met before in competition from the track to the marathon , and over their past meetings both men has had significant wins against each other. Kipchoge first struck Bekele in 2003 when he defeated him in the 5000m at the world championships, at just the age of 18. However it took just a year for Bekele to get his revenge in the same event, when he finished ahead of kipchoge at the Athens Olympics.

Since then, it was all Bekele on the track, and kipchoge who had great endurance and decent amount of speed failed to live up to expectations ever since his wonderful run in 2003. 

Fast forward to 2013, he found the Marathon, the event you might say he was made for. Kipchoge in his first ever marathon won setting a new course record in Hamburg. The time of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 30 seconds still remains the course record for that Marathon.

Bekele in his first Marathon in Chicago, was 4th with a time of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 50 seconds. Interestingly, that race was won by Eliud Kipchoge.

Both men have come a long way since then, now having only 2 seconds between them. 

There are some interesting things to note from their best races. Bekele was faster for majority of the race, however not maintaining the momentum for the second 10km might have cost him the world record. In fact he came back strong enough to be ahead of the world record pace up to 40 kilometers and if he had not dropped the pace between the 15km and 20km we would have even higher stakes in London.

The general belief is that Bekele is a much speedy runner given his performances over the 5000 and 10,000 meters events. The fact however, when we take a look at the performances over the mile Kipchoge has way better leg speed. (Kenenise 4:01.57| Eliud kipchoge 3:50.40)

The strength of Bekele, lies in his ability run a fast last quarter of his race, in his 5000m world record he went out quickly but unlike his opponents he did not fade dramatically as they did. His tendency to gradually increase the pace of the race has given much problem in the past. Mixed with a great amount of leg speed Bekele is one of the last guys you would want to face in the last stage of a race.  

Having said that, Kipchoge is highly unlikely to be unphased by Bekele's strong finish having run a world's best of 1:59:40. If Bekele wants to trouble kipchoge he would need to go at a pace faster than Kipchoge is used to. In other words he has to aim for a new world record to perturb the dominant Kenyan. That may be likely, for someone like Bekele. we've seen where Bekele has gone in races and just try to go out and maintain some unbelievable paces, so Kipchoge has to be weary of that possibility.

So what can you expect?

You can expect a very fast race, with Eliud kipchoge and Kenenisa going at it from the beginning. The race will be pretty close and meanwhile we might not be able to pick a winner, because of the strong form of both these men, it is quite likely we will witness a new World record.