The organisation of the NN Marathon Rotterdam is very ambitious for the next few years. Talks with the city of Rotterdam to be able to increase the number of participants at the start are ongoing. Continuing the rich history of records is another aim: national and European records were broken in recent editions, but Rotterdam is also the fourth city worldwide when it comes to marathon world records.
Attracting the ambitious world record holder for the 2024 edition is part of that plan. Kiptum knows the NN Marathon Rotterdam. Back in 2019, he made his first appearance here as a pacer! He was keen on returning, but covid showed up. He should have started in April 2022, but some small injuries kept him away from his marathon debut. In the past ten months, he wrote history, but he didn’t forget he wanted to return to Rotterdam.
“I want to return here to run fast!” Kiptum said at the press conference. “This flat course lends itself to fast times and the enthusiastic masses of people along the road push us forward. I would like to be part of the rich history of this marathon.”
“I’ll try at least to beat my world record here. I know I’m capable of doing that, if my preparation works out well and the conditions are OK. And in that case, I will get close to the sub 2 barrier, so why not aiming to break it? That might look ambitious, but I’m not afraid of setting this kind of goals. There’s no limit to human energy.”