Kipchoge to defend marathon title in Tokyo

On Jul 19, 2021

Sprinter Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps may have retired but there are several athletes who are heading to the Olympics with the potential to make history.

The second-fastest woman in history behind the late Florence Griffith-Joyner, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is the one to beat in the 100m.

In a field without rising star Sha’Carri Richardson of the US, the 2008 and 2012 100m champion could become the first woman to win three Olympic titles over the distance.

Eliud Kipchoge became the first man to run a marathon in under two hours in 2019. In Tokyo, he is defending the title.

If he succeeds, he will be the third person in history to win the Olympic marathon twice after Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila (1960, 1964) and East Germany’s Waldemar Cierpinski (1976 and 1980).

Meanwhile, American Allyson Felix returns for her fifth and final Olympic Games. The American sprinter already has six Olympic Gold Medals and three Silvers, which makes her the most successful female athlete in history.

By winning one more, she will equal Carl Lewis’s record for an athlete from the United States.