Eliud Kipchoge, the Kenyan reckoned the best distance runner of all time will compete in tomorrow’s Berlin Marathon. He has won nine of the 10 marathons he has entered, including Berlin twice, is the reigning Olympic champion and has never sustained a serious injury. His formula is – Motivation + Discipline = Consistency.
Born 5 November 1984 in rural Kenya, he ran to school since there was no transport and was helped into competitive sport as a teenager by a local athlete who had returned home from the US to run training programmes.
He has his Sun in Scorpio conjunct Saturn with Pluto and Mercury also in Scorpio – so he’s not short of determination or endurance, despite his slight size and weight of 5 foot 6 and 115 pounds. His Saturn is in a disciplined sextile to Mars in Capricorn; and his Pluto is in a confident sextile to Jupiter, with his Mars in aspect to his Jupiter/Pluto midpoint. His Uranus is conjunct his Mars/Pluto midpoint and his Pluto aspects his Sun/Mars – all of which make sense for a brutal sport requiring a punishing training schedule and extreme mental discipline to overcome pain and fatigue. Which just goes to show there are ways of using difficult aspects in a chart and turning them to constructive ends.
His chart has some similarities to Dennis Kipruto Kimetto, the present marathon world record holder, 22 January 1984, who has an Aquarius Sun square Pluto Mars in Scorpio with Saturn also in Scorpio. He also has Jupiter sextile Pluto; and his Pluto aspects his Sun/Mars midpoint.
Of the other four marathon champions’ charts I looked at – Kiprotich, Tergat, Bikla, Gebrselassie – all have their Jupiter/Pluto midpoint in aspect to one of their planets, as well as either Mars/Saturn or Mars/Pluto.
Kiprotich has a formidably tough-minded Mars, Saturn, Pluto in Libra inconjunct his Pisces Sun which squares Neptune. And Tergat has a powerhouse Pluto, Jupiter, Uranus in Virgo square his Gemini Sun, with his Sun inconjunct his Neptune. Neptune also surprisingly often turns up in athletes’ charts, giving the lie to its reputation for wimpy low energy.
Eliud Kipchoge has set a new marathon world record with a time of two hours, one minute 39 seconds in Berlin, taking more than a minute off the previous best set by Dennis Kipruto Kimetto in 2014.
He is amazing! We have some history for long distance running in the family, I would even say talent, and always have followed these events.
I did some digging, though, and apparently, Kipchoge did compete and set records as a junior in 2003. This was 20 years after a drought in Eastern Africa resulting to Ethiopian Famine. This drought extended to Kenya, and apparently, saw Kenyan birthrate drop drastically (almost by 10 per percent) over just a couple of years. Therefore, it’s interesting that both the last and the current Marathon record holders were supposedly born on this difficult time.
And, as stated earlier, I think that if Kipchoge was actually born a couple of years earlier, it makes his accomplishment even more remarkable now.
I wouldn’t necessarely take that birthtime as a set one. Apparently, rural Kenya does not have the best record in keeping track of births. So much so that up until a very short while ago, they’d regularly send 3 best runners from their Championships to adult World Championship, and the next 3 or so breakaway runners to Junior Championships, regardless of their age. It would be interesting to see when Kipchoke competed first internationally, because he could well be older (!) than stated.
Obviously, this would make his story even more impressive, even if marathon runners tend ro peak later than most athletes.
Another factor to consider with birth is that the US and Europe are giving immigrants with no birth certificates an arbitrary date of birth. In the US it is usually January 1 or July 4. For example, entire refugee families will be given the same official birthday of January 1 from grandparents to toddlers.
In the future, astrologers are going to wonder why many customers are presenting these dates, and be puzzled.
I’ve seen this a lot, actually, working with client data bases on a “regular business”. However, in these cases, people are well aware their birth date is not “the official” one. And probably won’t consult an astrologer to begin with.
But obviously, this is not the case with Kipchoge, he is Kenyan and did some junior competing, too.
I’m always wary of January 1st birth dates especially from regions where there wasn’t good record keeping. Mind you even in the west, birth certificates depend on papa remembering to go along a few days later and register. Even AA rated timed birth certificates depend on the parental memory. The Queen Mother’s birth wasn’t officially recorded until six weeks after her birth by her father. Hospital records would be the only gold standard but they’re most often not available.