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Eliud Kipchoge vs. Kenenisa Bekele vs. Mo Farah History

By Chris Chavez

January 22, 2018

We already delved into Kenenisa Bekele’s announcement that he will be running the London Marathon in April. When I tweeted the news that he would be in the same race as Eliud Kipchoge and Mo Farah, I took a step back to see when was the last time they were all in the same race. The answer was 2009. We’ll get to that in a second. I decided to give a quick look at their all-time match-ups and there’s only two.

Combined Bekele, Farah and Kipchoge have eight Olympic gold medals and 12 world championship medals.


First meeting between Kenenisa Bekele, Eliud Kipchoge and Mo Farah was March 20, 2005 at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Saint-Etienne/Saint-Galmier. Bekele won. Kipchoge finished fifth. Farah was 37th. If you watch the finish, Kipchoge pretty much finished fourth but was just nipped at the end by an Ethiopian because he didn’t run through the finish line. A reminder to all the kids reading this, always run through the line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH8q-JabSKE

Record: Bekele 1, Kipchoge 0, Farah 0

We almost had our an Olympic showdown between the three of them at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing but Farah failed to make it out of the heats in the 5,000m. Bekele won gold and Kipchoge nabbed silver.

Record remains: Bekele 1, Kipchoge 0, Farah 0

We did get the three of them in a 5,000m final at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin. Bekele won gold, Kipchoge finished fifth and Farah was seventh.

Record: Bekele 2, Kipchoge 0, Farah 0

Since people like to learn athlete all-time head-to-head records, here’s how they stand:

Bekele vs. Kipchoge: 16–8

Bekele vs. Farah: 13–4

Kipchoge vs. Farah: 11–5

Chris Chavez

Chris Chavez launched CITIUS MAG in 2016 as a passion project while working full-time for Sports Illustrated. He covered the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and grew his humble blog into a multi-pronged media company. He completed all six World Marathon Majors and is an aspiring sub-five-minute miler.