Wilson Kipketer of Denmark in the 800m (© Getty Images)
Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer, the World record holder both indoors and out for the men’s 800m has decided to retire after he has attempted to defend his European title in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2006.
“It was in Gothenburg that I won my first World Championships in 1995,'' PA International reported that Kipketer had told TV2. “So I want to finish my career there where it all began in earnest.”
“At this moment in time he won't be running at the World Championships,” confirmed Lars Nielsen, who trains the Danish athletics team. “He has been in Kenya for some time and he doesn't feel he's in the form he should be in. His ambitions are also not as great as they used to be,” Nielsen added.
Kipketer, 34, who won three World championship outdoor titles for the two laps, feats which were sandwiched between the Olympics of Altanta and Sydney, is one of the greatest ever runners at 800m.
Due to his transfer of nationality from Kenya he was barred under IOC rules from competing in the 1996 Olympics, and so as the reigning World champion at the time had to watch as Norway’s Vebjorn Rodal took the laurels in Atlanta.
Immediately, the next winter Kipketer put in a stunning performance at the 1997 World Indoor Championships in Paris where he set a World indoor record in his heat (1:43.96), took the semi-final a day later in more modest fashion (1:48.49), and 24 hours later demolished the World indoor record further with a 1:42.67 clocking taking gold.
That summer Kipketer was to make the first of two successful defences of his outdoor World crown but with due deference to fine wins in Athens (1:43.38 - 1997) and Seville (1:43.30 - 1999), the greatest moments of his career were to come in that summer of 1997, firstly in Zurich when he improved Sebastian Coe’s World record which had stood since 1981 (1:41.73) to 1:41.24. Then eleven days later in Cologne he took the mark down a further notch to 1:41.11 (24 August, 1997).
Kipketer last set a World record in 2000 when running to the World Indoor mark for 1000m (2:14.96), and it was to be that summer that he would get the first of two Olympic medals (silver), while in Athens last year he took bronze.
Having suffered from a serious bout of malaria in the off-season after his illustrious 1997 campaign, Kipketer was a shadow of himself at the European championships of 1998 finishing an exhausted eighth, and he had not quite recovered enough by the winter of 1999, just failing to retain his World Indoor title in Maebashi, Japan by 0.02.
2002 finally brought him the continental title which he won in Munich, the following summer he was agonizingly fourth in the World Championships in Paris.
Chris Turner and PA International for the IAAF
