Elijah Lagat
Elijah Lagat (born June 19, 1966 ) is a former Kenyan long-distance runner who had his greatest successes in the marathon .
Lagat was employed by the Kenyan Ministry of Education when, at the end of 1992, a doctor whom he had consulted about heart problems advised him to lose weight and exercise. He started running regularly in early 1993 and not only lost a total of 15 kg of his body weight, but also found that he had excellent results in competitions, so after a year he decided to run as a competitive sport.
In 1995 he achieved his first international successes with a victory in the 25 km of Berlin in 1:16:16 and a second place in the Frankfurt Marathon in 2:12:40. In 1997 he won the Prague Marathon with the still valid course record of 2:08:52 and the Berlin Marathon with his personal best of 2:07:41.
In 2000 he then prevailed in a dramatic final at the Boston Marathon against Gezahegne Abera and Moses Tanui . The gap on Abera was less than a second, that on Tanui three seconds. Lagat has now been nominated by the Kenyan Association for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney , but was soon excluded from the team again. As an explanation, the association stated a lack of willingness to train, while others attributed this decision to the criticism it had of the sports officials in his country.
After Ondoro Osoro , one of the runners subsequently nominated by the association, was seriously injured in a robbery, Lagat moved up to the Olympic team. He tried hard to justify his efforts, but got into a state of overtraining and failed to finish at the Sydney Marathon.
The following year he competed in Boston again, but was only seventeenth. His marathon career came to an end with a sixth place in the Millennium Marathon in Madrid (2:12:25) in the same year.
Web links
- Elijah Lagat in the database of World Athletics (English)
- Articles about his victory in Boston on cbsnews.com (Engl.)
- Articles about his career and the circumstances of his nomination for Sydney on boston.com (Engl.)
Footnotes
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lagat, Elijah |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Kenyan marathon runner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 19, 1966 |