Race Against Time: Remembering Kelvin Kiptum’s world record at the Chicago Marathon

Marathon photographer, race director reflect on Kiptum’s run for the ages

CHICAGO — Life is fleeting, and that is true even in a sport defined by endurance. The story of Kelvin Kiptum, whose boundless brilliance as a distance runner mesmerized the worldwide marathon community, underscores that point. 

Kiptum’s tragic death in a car crash ended the career of the promising young athlete – perhaps before his prime – but only after a towering achievement.

At the 2023 Bank of America Chicago Marathon, he shattered the world record, and completed one of the greatest athletic feats ever accomplished in the City of Chicago.

Kiptum bust onto the scene in Spain in 2022. Running the Valencia Marathon, his first ever, he set the course record. Then he ran in the London Marathon, and he set the course record there, too. 

The whispers of potential historic feats became legitimate questions: a reporter asked if he could break the world record.

Reporter: “Now that you know you can get there, is that something you’re thinking about making the next marathon you run, maybe breaking the world record?”

Kiptum: “No, maybe the next coming two or three.” 

Kiptum’s next race would be the 2023 Bank of America Chicago Marathon.

61-year-old Kevin Morris is one of the Chicago marathon’s official photographers.

On a snowy spring evening, during his first trip back to the city since the race, we walked the same route from the finish line to the champions portrait location on the Balbo Avenue overpass. 

“To take the walk with him from the finish line to here, I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Morris said.

His focus was on telling the story of the marathon with his photos, finding backdrops that set the grace of the runner against the grittiness of the city.

“I want to show the place as much as the race itself,” he said. “They both tell the story.”

But by Mile 21 – somewhere around Chinatown – Morris noticed Kiptum was moving in a way that seemed otherworldly.

“The physicality of his running was so unlike anything I’d ever seen,” Morris said. “I could say he was floating.”

Race director Carey Pinkowski was monitoring the runners and could see Kiptum wasn’t simply competing against the other athletes. He was in a race against history.

“He was on a mission with himself and the history books and the clock.” Pinkowski said. “When I started to get the splits at (mile) 21, 22, and I realized he was 15, 18, 20, 30 seconds under the record, that’s where it became a reality.”

Kiptum shattered the world record by more than half a minute – running 26.2 miles in just 2 hours and 35 seconds.

Morris waited at the finish line to capture the crowning moment as the new world record holder leapt into Pinkoski’s open arms.

“It was something that just happened,” Pinkowski said. “I think he was emotionally spent; I don’t think he was physically spent because he came to me and I just kind of held him up, and I said, ‘you’re the world record holder now, you’ve brought the record back to Chicago.”

Morris reflected on the beauty of the moment.

“There’s a reason why the Chicago Marathon is one of the best marathons in the word, and it’s because of the passion that Carey Pinkowski still has after all these years of doing it and he was so ecstatic,” Morris said.

The elation wouldn’t last. Four months later, on February 11, Kiptum was killed in a horrific car accident in rural Kenya. He was just 24 years old.

“It was hard to believe,” Pinkowski said. “Hard to process. I had gotten a call from Kenya, and they were aware that there was an accident. Kelvin and his coach were killed at the scene.”

Kiptum’s story is now one of unrealized potential. He came so close to breaking the sport’s mythical barrier: the sub-two-hour marathon. “It’s just not right that he’s no longer here to carry forward with what he had started,” Morris said.