The defeat of the greatest, Eliud Kipchoge

Kipchoge crosses the finish line more than a minute after the winner, Kitata.RICHARD HEATHCOTE / AFP

The great Haile Gebrselassie used to say that if he were to be born again he would not mind being reincarnated as Eliud Kipchoge, and that he already tells his son that he has to be like him, like the Olympic marathon champion.

He said it before the London marathon, and surely he would say it again, and even stronger, after what happened this Sunday for two hours and five minutes on a cold and rainy morning, typically London, in the so London St James's Park , and Kipchoge is not a robot on magical platform shoes and the frown of a smile on his lips that has won everything since 2013, but an athlete who suffers.

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• Athletics enters the era of magic shoes

• Eliud Kipchoge, first athlete to drop below two hours in a marathon: 1h 59m 40s

It is the London marathon, the only one of the great ones that has withstood the pandemic, and has had to delay six months, from spring to autumn, to achieve it.

And it is the most extraordinary London marathon that is remembered, and not so much because it has only been able to survive by giving up its usual route that crosses the entire British metropolis, and not even because it has been reduced to a circuit race, 20 laps of the pond. from the park that goes from Buckingham Palace to Downing Street and the flooded field of the horse guard parade, and behind closed doors, just a few puppets simulating the public on the sides of the fences, and with a participation reduced to 100 professional athletes, without the tens of thousands of usual popular runners, but because for the first time in a long time a marathon stops being a time trial, the fight against time, against the record, of an athlete in a state of grace, and becomes an open fight for the victory of a dozen athletes, and chronometers do not exist.

And although everyone runs on four-centimeter platforms, an inevitable evil, no one ends up proclaiming that they have won this one because their shoes have springs and atomic foam.

The face that cannot hide the pain

And he does not win the one everyone expected, the greatest in history, Eliud Kipchoge, who leads the group of good guys until kilometer 37, which is when his face cannot hide the pain and his legs shorten his stride, that loses shine and tone, and although the race is very slow for his habits, because Kipchoge is the world record holder (2h 1m 39s), and has won 11 of the 12 marathons he has run before the fatal 13th, and a year ago, in Vienna, in an exhibition of atomic footwear, ran the 42.195 kilometers in less than two hours (1h 59m 40s), it is too fast for its moment of form.

And when he stays, all those who observe him realize the greatness of the Olympic champion: the race did not go faster because he could not, and because the rivals, who fear him so much, did not dare to launch it for fear of the 35-year-old athlete years that most symbolize in his person, in his humble and great life, all the adjectives that you want to add to the marathon.

The most unexpected of all favorites wins, a tiny 24-year-old Ethiopian named Shura Kitata.

And in the crazy times in which marathons in which the winner does not fall below two hours three minutes seem less, Kitata's time is 2h 5m 41s, similar to the one that gave the victory to the Moroccan Khanuchi 18 years ago.

In a

that Kipchoge, already so late, cannot see, three marathoners compete for victory in the last 200 meters.

An exceptional finale in which the Kenyan Vincent Kipchumba, a 30-year-old giant, rushes in, hurls himself early in a rhythm that he cannot maintain and that only serves to make Kitata easily emerge from his back and triumph.

Third was the Ethiopian Sisay Lemma.

Kipchoge, he, finished eighth, a minute later.

"I suffered cramps," Kipchoge said later, who, strikingly, skipped the last refreshment stations without taking his bottle.

"It was cold, but that was not the reason."