SELF-BELIEF drives Eliud Kipchoge. He says that’s where his inner strength comes from. "If you have that belief that you want to be successful, then you can talk to your mind and your mind will control you to be successful,” he says.
Eliud was just 16 when he began his journey to becoming the greatest marathon runner of all time. His coach Patrick Sang remembers him as a young boy who was hungry to learn.
“I didn’t know his name,” he said. “But he kept coming up to me and asking for training programmes.” Eliud is now a household name.
But fame and fortune have never been the motivation. He simply wants to use his status to encourage others to run.
"My dream is to make this world a running world,” he said. “A running world is a healthy world. A running world is a wealthy world. A running world is a peaceful world. A running world is a joyful world.”
In achieving the seemingly impossible by running a marathon in under two hours, he wants to show the world that no human is limited. And that with self-belief, anything is possible.
Before the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, Eliud said he hoped it would inspire at least three billion people. That’s half the world. Those closest to him may have secretly thought he was being a tad ambitious. But when the final viewing figures of his historic run in Vienna were revealed, he was on his way to achieving his goal.
Not only that but the challenge had also inspired one Kenyan woman to name her newborn baby girl, INEOS.