Eliud Kipchoge

One of the fastest long-distance runners of all time, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge picked up medals at the Olympics and World Championships before successfully transferring to the marathon circuit. Born in Kapsisiywa, Nandi District in 1984, Kipchoge showed little aptitude for running during his school years and initially planned to study human resource management before he took up cross-country in his late teens. Inspired by Kenyan steeplechase silver medallist Patrick Sang, Kipchoge made up for lost time with a fifth place finish in his first major international junior race at the 2002 World Cross Country Championships in Dublin, while a year later he picked up his first medal, and a gold one at that, in the same competition. However, it was his astonishing performance in the 2003 World Championships, when he pipped Moroccan favorite Hicham El Guerrouj at the line to win gold in the 5000m, which made the athletics world truly sit up and take notice. El Guerrouj got his revenge at the 2004 Athens Olympics, but Kipchoge still walked away with a bronze medal, while victory at the San Silvestra Vallecana New Year's Eve 10km road race, a bronze in the 3000m at the 2006 Indoor World Championships and a silver in the 5000m at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka all cemented Kipchoge's status as one of his homeland's finest track athletes. Kipchoge then added silver medals in the 5000m at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 Commonwealth Games to his trophy cabinet, won the Qatar Athletic Super Grand Prix, Carlsbad 5000 Road Race and Great Edinburgh Cross Country, but disappointingly failed to qualify for a third consecutive Olympics after placing seventh in the Kenyan trials. The poor result inspired Kipchoge to switch to the half-marathon, and then the marathon, a move which paid off when he set a new course record at the 2013 Hamburg Marathon, achieved the fifth-fastest time in history at the Berlin Marathon later that same year, and won the London Marathon in both 2015 and 2016.