Cheruiyot, Robert Kipkoech

Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, (born Sept. 26, 1978, Eldoret, Kenya), Kenyan runner who became the first man to win the Chicago Marathon and the Boston Marathon in the same year (2006).

Cheruiyot, a Nandi tribesman, enjoyed success as a high-school runner but struggled for two years after graduation when his parents separated. He lived with his mother and then with his father, and he eventually endured a hand-to-mouth existence on his own before joining the training camps of past Boston Marathon winners Cosmas N’Deti and Moses Tanui.

In February 2002 Cheruiyot won the Discovery Kenya Half-Marathon, a race organized in Eldoret by Italian coach Gabriele Rosa. The victory earned him an invitation that month to the Rome-Ostia Half-Marathon, where he won in a personal record time of 1 hr 6 sec. In December of that year Cheruiyot won a spectacular sprint finish over Kenyan Michael Rotich and Italian Daniele Caimmi to triumph in his first marathon, the Milan City Marathon. All three runners were credited with the same time: 2 hr 8 min 59 sec. Cheruiyot won the 2003 Boston Marathon, saying afterward that the course’s fabled hills suited his aptitude for hill climbing. This was a somewhat surprising assertion by a runner who stood 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 metres) tall; conventional wisdom holds that shorter runners generally make better hill climbers. With his Boston winnings he bought a tea plantation and started his own training camp. After the plantation business failed, Cheruiyot in 2004 joined the training camp of marathon world-record holder Paul Tergat in the Ngong Hills near Nairobi. When asked, Cheruiyot credited Tergat and Tanui with having taught him the patience to handle—and win—major international races.

Cheruiyot surged to the forefront of marathon running in 2006, winning the 110th Boston Marathon in April with a course record of 2 hr 7 min 14 sec and the Chicago Marathon in October in 2 hr 7 min 35 sec. Just before crossing the finish line, as he raised his arms to celebrate a five-second victory over fellow Kenyan Daniel Njenga, Cheruiyot slipped on plastic sheeting laid over the pavement and fell. His momentum carried him across the finish line, but he struck the back of his head with such force that he had to be hospitalized for two days with internal and external cranial bleeding. The following year Cheruiyot again won the Boston Marathon, a victory that helped him capture the men’s title in the first two-year cycle (2006–07) of the World Marathon Majors. In April 2008 he became the first Kenyan man to win the Boston Marathon four times.