Kelvin Kiptum
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Kelvin Kiptum Cheruiyot (2 December 1999 – 11 February 2024) was a Kenyan long-distance runner who set the current marathon world record. As of 2025, he still holds three of the seven fastest marathons in history, and was ranked first among the world's men's marathon runners at the time of his death. Kiptum won all three marathons he ran, including two top-tier World Marathon Majors (WMM) between December 2022 and October 2023. His times were three of the seven fastest marathon times, setting a course record of less than 2 hours 2 minutes in each race. Kiptum ran the fastest-ever marathon debut at the 2022 Valencia Marathon, becoming only the third man in history to break two hours and two minutes and setting the then fourth-quickest time ever. He followed it up four months later with the second-fastest marathon in history at 2:01:25, 16 seconds outside the world record, at the 2023 London Marathon (WMM). At the 2023 Chicago Marathon six months later in October 2023, he broke the world record by 34 seconds with a time of 2:00:35, a mark ratified on 6 February 2024—five days before his death—by the international track federation World Athletics. He and his coach died in a car crash on 11 February 2024 in Kaptagat, a settlement in rural Kenya used as a training place for long-distance runners. Local police said that Kiptum lost control of his vehicle and veered off the road, hitting a tree.