Brigid Kosgei has set her sights on next year’s Olympic games, where a win will solidify her place among the greatest to have ever competed in the sport.
Kosgei, a 25-year old mother and the fastest-ever woman marathon runner, smashed Briton’s Paula Radcliffe’s 16-year-old world record by 81 seconds at the Chicago Marathon in October, recording a time of two hours, 14 minutes and four seconds.
“When I went to compete (in Chicago) I did not think that I would break the record,” Kosgei told Reuters at an Athletics Kenya conference in the northwestern city of Eldoret. “My aim was to break the course record (which was 2:17:18).”
According to Kosgei, she does not fear anyone and focuses only on running her best while competing, a mentality shaped by her win at her first international marathon in Porto in 2015.
“Winning made me realize that I can run marathons,” she said. “Before that sometimes I would be discouraged by others that marathons are really tough. But I came to realize, it’s not tough. It’s just discipline and hard work and patience.”
Kosgei dismissed critics who have said her record was unfairly aided by the use of the latest running shoes from Nike.
The shoes have carbon-fibre plates and a thicker midsole that the manufacturers claim improve running economy by 4% or 5%.
A version of the shoes are also worn by men’s marathon world-record holder Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, who the day before Kosgei’s Chicago win, recorded an astonishing, pacer-aided 1:59.40 in Vienna.
