For Eliud Kipchoge, a race can solve almost everything. He is doing more than well, so perhaps the formula is not so far off. “Running is not just a physical movement. It is a vehicle that has the power to unite us,” he said at the elegant Teatro del Campoamor, in Oviedo, where this Friday he was awarded the Princess of Sports Award, in an appointment in which he had prevailed over other renowned candidates such as the by Roger Federer or Simon Biles. Kipchoge was one of the winners in this edition who gave a speech before Their Majesties the Kings of Spain. In an edition of the Princess Awards that seemed marked by Meryl Streep’s glitter (Arts Award), the athlete, one of the most distinguished in the history of athletics, took his share of the spotlight.
“When you run, your origins don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what color your skin is. These people will cheer you on throughout the race because, in that moment, we all come together to celebrate the act of running. Running is testimony that we are all one. Running a marathon is a celebration. A moment in which you are applauded for the infinite hours of dedication, discipline and passion that you have invested in your training until you reach that moment,” proclaimed the Kenyan.
Kipchoge, as he has repeated several times in the last few hours in Oviedo, aims to make everyone run more. He believes that it is the best possible therapy and that it would alleviate the problems. And he repeated his thesis before the audience present: “We must make our world a world that runs. Because a world that runs is a happy world. And a happy world is a world at peace. There is a strong parallel between running and our daily lives, where, to be happy, we must focus on our mental health and overcome the challenges presented to us before finally reaching the proverbial finish line. “Someone who finishes a marathon is capable of achieving anything in life.”
He added: “People often ask me how I celebrate my successes. I’m not one to party with champagne after winning a race. I like to go back to my training camp in Kenya and plant a tree. My teammates and I established a tradition of planting a tree to celebrate our successes along the way. Since, once the goal is reached, the moment of glory is fleeting. But the joy that comes from growing a tree lasts many lifetimes.”
For all this, Kipchoge defended in Oviedo that “we can only achieve greatness if we fully believe that there is nothing that stops us. There are no limits; It is our mind that makes us believe it in a deceptive way. I urge you to see the world without limits, to see everything that is possible. I also invite you to start running, no matter how far or how fast. Then, they will begin to feel what I feel.”
A track record with a cache
Kipchoge received the recognition on stage, succeeding the Foundation and the Olympic refugee team, who were awarded last year. In the most immediate precedents, winners of various sports specialties in a tendency to alternate the recognition of international stars with national athletes. Thus, before Kipchoge, figures such as Teresa Perales (2021), Carlos Sainz (2020), Lindsey Vonn (2019), Reinhold Messner and Krzysztof Wielicki (2018), the “All Blacks” (2017), had received the Princess of Sports. Javier Gómez Noya (2016), Pau and Marc Gasol (2015), the New York Marathon (2014), José María Olazábal (2013), Iker Casillas and Xavi Hernández (2012), Haile Gebrselassie (2011)…
2023-10-20 21:39:11
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