Elijah Kiptarbei Lagat (born 19 June 1966) was the winner of the 104th running of the
Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by several cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was i ...
held in 2000. He won in the closest finish in the race's history when he edged out
Gezahegne Abera
Gezahegne Abera ( Amharic: ገዛሄኘ አበራ; born April 23, 1978) is an Ethiopian athlete, winner of the marathon race at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
Born in Etya, Arsi Province, Gezahegne's first international competition was the ...
of
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
and fellow
Kenyan
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and previous year's champion,
Moses Tanui
Moses Tanui (born 20 August 1965 in Sugoi Nandi District, Kenya) is a former Kenyan long-distance runner who won the gold medal over 10,000 metres at the 1991 World Championships in Athletics in Tokyo.
Biography
At the 1993 World Championships i ...
. Abera and Lagat were both clocked at 2 hours 9 minutes and 47 seconds while Tanui finished three seconds back. Lagat's win enabled the Kenyans to capture the individual men's Boston Marathon title for the 10th straight year. This is a record that still stands.
Early life
Lagat was born and raised in
Saniak, Kenya in the
Nandi District
Nandi County is a Counties of Kenya, county in Kenya in the North Rift, occupying an area of 2,884.4 square kilometres. Its capital, Kapsabet, is the largest town in the county while other towns include Mosoriot, Tinderet Constituency, Tinderet ...
.
2000 Sydney Olympics Marathon Controversy
Lagat's win in the Boston Marathon initially gave him a spot on Kenya's marathon team in the 2000 Olympics. Lagat indicated his enthusiasm for running in the Olympics immediately after Boston. However, later in the year the director of the Kenyan Amateur Athletics Association,
David Okeyo, replaced the three runners who had initially made the team (Lagat, Tanui and
Japhet Kosgei
Japhet Kosgei (born 20 December 1968) is a retired long-distance runner from Kenya, who won several marathons during his career, including the 1999 edition of the Rotterdam Marathon and 2006 Belgrade Marathon. His personal best is 2:07:09. He won ...
) with three other Kenyans
Ondoro Osoro
Ondoro Osoro (born 3 December 1967) is a former Kenyan long-distance runner who competed mostly in cross country and road races.
In his early career he won a series of cross country races in Europe (taking the first IAAF World Cross Challeng ...
,
Erick Wainaina
Erick Wainaina (born December 19, 1973, in Nyahururu) is a Kenyan marathon runner, who won an Olympic bronze medal in 1996 and a silver medal in 2000. He finished seventh in the 2004 Summer Olympics marathon in Athens, making him one of the few ...
and
Kenneth Cheruiyot
Kenneth Cheruiyot (born August 2, 1974) is an athlete from Kenya who specialises in long-distance running. He is most famous for winning the Rotterdam Marathon in 2000. He finished second in the event in 2001 and 2002. In 2002 he fell to ground and ...
. He claimed that the three who had initially made the team had not been training hard enough. This move may have been precipitated by poor Kenyan showings in the Olympic marathons in the past. It also may have been brought about by the three initial qualifiers' criticism of the Kenyan Amateur Athletics Association officials. Despite Kenya's many successes in marathoning, they were unable to secure an Olympic gold medal until Samuel Wanjiru's record setting run in the 2008 Beijing games.
Later in the summer of 2000 however, Onsaro was shot in a carjacking incident. Lagat found his way back onto the team as a replacement after being clearly miffed by what he called a strange dismissal from the team. When the
Sydney Olympics
The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug language, Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport ...
finally came about, Lagat was on the team and started the race but did not finish. He blamed his failure to finish on excessive preparation for the Olympic marathon; he claimed he wanted to show the Kenyan athletics officials he really could win but overtrained as a result.
Motivation
Lagat began running simply to lose weight and not necessarily to compete at the highest level of the sport. As a young man, a physician told him that he "had a lot of fat around his heart" and needed to lose weight. The Kenyan obliged and his weight decreased from 158 pounds in 1992 to 125 by the time he won Boston. He started jogging in 1993 and began competing in 1994. He was already 27 when he first began competing; his late start in the sport is unusual and a testament to his innate talent. Before running, Lagat worked as an educational administrator before switching to full-time athlete.
Other victories
Lagat won the
Prague Marathon
The Prague Marathon (also known as Prague International Marathon (PIM) and Volkswagen Prague Marathon) is an annual road marathon held in the city of Prague in the Czech Republic each May. It was founded in 1995 and has grown to become a si ...
in 1998 and the
Berlin Marathon
The Berlin Marathon (german: Berlin-Marathon, ) is a marathon event held annually on the streets of Berlin, Germany on the last weekend of September. Held annually since 1974, the event includes multiple races over the marathon distance of , inclu ...
in 1997. His best time was a 2:07:41 during his win in Berlin.
He tried to defend his Boston title in 2001 but finished 17th with a time of 2:17:59 that year. He has not competed at the same level since then.
Politics
Prior to the
2002 general elections, Lagat was persuaded by his friends to vie for the
Emgwen Constituency parliamentary seats. After initial resistance, Lagat agreed and vied for the seat on
KANU ticket. He lost, however, to
Stephen Kipkiyeny Tarus who represented the victorious
NARC coalition. After the elections, Lagat continued his athletics career.
At the
2007 parliamentary elections, Lagat successfully vied for Emgwen Constituency parliamentary seat on
ODM ticket, beating Tarus, who now represented the
PNU party.
Education
He has a degree in History from
University of Eastern Africa, Baraton
The University of Eastern Africa, Baraton (UEAB) is a private coeducational Seventh-day Adventist university located in Baraton, about 50 km from Eldoret Kenya. It offers degrees in graduate and undergraduate programs in the fields of Busi ...
, and a degree for an MBA in Strategic Management at
Africa Nazarene University
Africa Nazarene University is a private Christian-founded university in, Kenya, and an affiliate of ''The Church of the Nazarene Colleges and Universities'' around the world. Africa Nazarene University is fully accredited by the Commission for Un ...
.
[
]
Personal life
Lagat is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
.
Achievements
See also
*List of winners of the Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon, one of the six World Marathon Majors, is a race which has been held in the Greater Boston area in Massachusetts since 1897. Until 2020, it was the oldest annual marathon in the world, a distinction now held by the Osaka-Lake ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lagat, Elijah
1966 births
Living people
Kenyan male long-distance runners
Kenyan male marathon runners
Kenyan sportsperson-politicians
Kenyan Seventh-day Adventists
Athletes (track and field) at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Olympic athletes of Kenya
Kenya African National Union politicians
Orange Democratic Movement politicians
Members of the National Assembly (Kenya)
Boston Marathon male winners
Berlin Marathon male winners
Africa Nazarene University alumni
People from Nandi County