The streets of Berlin belong to the young, the ambitious.

At least in the marathon.

If you want to make an international name for yourself, if you want to qualify, if you need an outstanding best time to make yourself interesting for the street races with the big budgets, run the Berlin marathon with its flat roads, flat stretches and wide curves.

Michael Reinsch

Correspondent for sports in Berlin.

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Ever since the world association of track and field athletes recognized world records in the marathon, since Paul Tergat ran the 42.195 kilometers in 2:04:55 hours in 2003, all seven records for men have come from the German capital.

Most recently, Eliud Kipchoge improved the record in 2018 to 2:01:39 hours.

When in 2019 Kenenisa Bekele missed this time by just two seconds when his Ethiopian compatriot Birhanu Legese ran the third best marathon time in history in 2:02:48, this also happened in Berlin.

Marathon under two hours

Of the six runners who have ever finished a marathon in less than 2:03 hours, four did so on the lap from Strasse des 17. Juni to the Brandenburg Gate.

This Sunday (9:00 a.m. live on ARD) the one who has won everything and achieved everything will be back in Berlin: Eliud Kipchoge.

The Kenyan is Olympic champion in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021, not only holds the world record, but is also the only person to have run the marathon distance in less than two hours - in a large-scale test in Vienna's Prater in 2019 that did not comply with the marathon rules.

At 37, Kipchoge has had more questions about ending his career than new goals for years.

Now he says: “I still want to run fast.

Berlin gives me the opportunity to push my boundaries.

I want to inspire people.

The more I achieve, the better I succeed.” If that doesn't mean: world record!

Kipchoge has run 18 marathons since he switched to the road in 2012.

Junior world champion in cross country in 2002, world champion in the 5000 meters in Paris in 2003, bronze and silver medalist at the Olympic Games in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, he failed to qualify for London 2012.

Since then he has won 16 marathons;

including four times in London, four times in Berlin and most recently in Tokyo in 2:02:40, the third best time of his life.

reading and exercising

This result at the latest should have signaled to him that he still has some great races in his legs in the two and a half years until he turns forty and that it is not yet time to let his career coast to a halt.

When asked why he smiles when the race gets toughest and most painful, Kipchoge replies, "The trick is to love what I'm doing."

"I'm still hungry to run," he says in an interview in Berlin: "I want to run a few more marathons.

My head says: Inspire the younger generation.” So the head.

As disciplined as he trains, Kipchoge reads with such discipline.

Twice a day he takes the time to read guidebooks, management literature and autobiographies.

With his foundation he supports the founders of school libraries.

Young people should be given the opportunity to get to know the world through the written word.

For him, reading is not a fantastic journey.

His discoverer and trainer Patrick Sang didn't notice the outstanding talent in the sixteen-year-old Kipchoge, but rather an iron will to persevere.

Kipchoge is still training this twenty years later.

His most memorable read, a book he says changed his life, was Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese.

It taught him not only to understand the major technological and social changes as an invitation to develop.

It also enabled him to deal with any situation.

Training methods may have changed, nutritional finesse, new materials may have enabled the construction of shoes that make running significantly faster - for Eliud Kipchoge, his head is still the biggest muscle and the strongest driver.

"Monza opened up my world of thoughts," says Kipchoge about the fantastic attempt to implement the "breaking2" project with the help of changing pacemakers, a slipstream through an electric vehicle and other optimized conditions on the car race track in Italy: to cover the marathon distance in less than two hours .

Kipchoge stayed 25 seconds over two hours, but he didn't take that as a failure.

"You can write a goal on paper, you can turn it into reality, and you can achieve it," he says in retrospect.

Not only the advertising department of his sponsor, he himself has since been convinced that this run changed the perception of human possibilities and showed millions of people: There are no borders.

Almost two and a half years after Monza, thirteen months after his world record in Berlin, in October 2019, Kipchoge beat the two hours by twenty seconds at the next field test in Vienna.

So now his fifth run in Berlin: start for the next record?