Berlin has given Eliud Kipchoge some of the defining moments of his career. But for the Kenyan great, those memories were never simply about winning races. They changed what he believed a marathoner could do.
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Kipchoge has returned to the German capital time and again, building a remarkable relationship with the BMW Berlin Marathon. He won there five times and twice left the city, having rewritten the world record. Yet it was the 2018 edition that changed something deeper.
“Breaking the world record in 2018 was very special,” Kipchoge recalled. “It really showed me that I was capable of doing more than just crossing the line first.” That 2:01:39 run was more than another victory. Kipchoge had taken 78 seconds off Dennis Kimetto’s previous world record, turning a race he had already dominated into a moment that changed his own ambitions. “That is when I believed,” he said. “The achievement inspired me more to push my limits and see what was possible when I put my mind into it.”
The belief soon took him somewhere no marathoner had gone before.
A year later, Kipchoge stood in Vienna for the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, surrounded by a team of pacemakers and a goal that had long been treated as beyond human reach. He eventually crossed the line in 1:59:40.2, becoming the first person to run a marathon distance under two hours. The effort was not eligible for an official world record because the event did not meet standard competition requirements, but its impact stretched far beyond the stopwatch.
“I removed the thinking from human minds about the limits,” Kipchoge told Olympics.com. “And for now, I think the whole population now doesn’t believe in limits.”
That idea has become one of the defining themes of Kipchoge’s career. And Berlin remains at the heart of it.
Berlin holds a special place in Kipchoge’s heart, and the attraction is clear. The course is fast, the conditions can be favourable, and the city itself has become intertwined with some of his greatest memories.
“Berlin Marathon actually is a special race,” he said. “I’ve won five times, two times the world record in Berlin.”
His first victory came in 2015, when he clocked 2:04:00. Two years later, he returned and improved to 2:03:32. Then came 2018 and the performance that changed his perception of his own ceiling.
Kipchoge returned again in 2022 and lowered his own mark to 2:01:09, setting another world record. He added a fifth Berlin victory in 2023, finishing in 2:02:42. His relationship with the race had evolved from simply chasing wins to repeatedly testing how far the marathon could be pushed.
And perhaps that is why his words about the next generation carry extra weight.
In April 2026, the barrier Kipchoge had attacked in Vienna was finally broken in an official marathon. Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30 at the London Marathon, becoming the first man to officially break two hours. Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha followed in 1:59:41, while Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo finished in 2:00:28. World Athletics subsequently ratified Sawe’s time as the world record.
For Kipchoge, the development was not surprising. It was almost a continuation of the idea he had been preaching for years.
“Seven years down the line, we’ve got two people actually running under two hours,” he said.
He believes that is only the beginning. “The next generation will run more, because the next generation now doesn’t know where the limits are,” Kipchoge said. He believes the sport will be interesting in the future.
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That question has already been answered by Kipchoge himself. After his difficult Olympic marathon in Paris in 2024, where he failed to finish for the first time in his career, Kipchoge made it clear that another Olympic marathon was not in his plans. He described the experience as a painful chapter, but not the end of his relationship with running.
“I will continue to [run], absolutely why not?” he said after Paris. “I will not go into coaching. I have many other things to do than being a coach. I have to travel around the world, around the countries to motivate people.”
That mindset has since shaped the next phase of his career. After making his New York City Marathon debut in November 2025 and completing the original six World Marathon Majors, Kipchoge announced a new chapter centered on running with a broader purpose.
His Eliud Kipchoge World Tour is planned to take him across all seven continents over two years, combining marathon running with charitable and environmental work.
In 2025, Kipchoge unveiled his plan to run seven marathons on seven continents. “I will run in Antarctica! I now want to do that extreme thing that can make someone work hard… I will run even 50 kilometres in Saudi Arabia. I want to do that extreme thing that can make somebody work hard and also get partners (sponsors) to rally for a cause.”
The competitive chapter may be changing, but the central message has not.
Kipchoge spent years showing that limits could move. In Berlin, he discovered that for himself. In Vienna, he challenged an entire sport to think differently.
Now, with Sawe and Kejelcha having taken the official marathon below two hours, the generation that followed him is proving that belief can become reality.
For Kipchoge, perhaps that is the real legacy of those extraordinary miles.
“I think it can still go lower,” he said. “If you say something through your heart and through your mind, then you can do it. I’ve always been an example to them.”
And perhaps that is Kipchoge’s greatest gift to running, not simply showing how fast a human can go, but making the world believe there is still farther to run.