Kipchoge and Kipyegon’s coach revealed the key to their success

Patrick Sang (60 years old) is one of Kenya’s best athletes in the 3,000 hurdles, silver medalist at the Olympic Games. Barcelona’92 and in the 1991 Tokyo World Cup, and today he is more recognized as the coach of the best distance runners. For 20 years he has been guiding the preparation of Eliud Kipchogethe best marathon runner of all time, and Faith Kipyegon, Olympic and world champion and 1,500m and 5,000m record holder. Sang spoke in an interview with Athletics Weekly about the philosophy behind his way of understanding athletics.

“To train someone you have to be you well prepared. You have to gain knowledge,” he said about his current job. During his time as an international athlete, he made sure that 80% of his preparation was done by himself with self-training. For athletes who want to jump to the coach, he recommends doing a training period in different areas such as administration or representation to learn how to manage the sports career in the best way and from different points of view.

“My philosophy that in order to have a successful relationship between coach and athlete you need to have blind trust. An athlete who trusts you, even if you ask him to run something out of the ordinary, will do it precisely because of that trust,” he explained about one of the key to success of his athletes, with whom he usually has a very long professional relationship. “Many of the great athletes are talented, but when you train them they listen to so many different voices, they reach their 80% level instead of 100%. “People who trust the relationship completely has reached 100%,” he said.

Another characteristic of his training method is the addition of large volumes of kilometers to his athletes, regardless of the distance in which they compete. For example, in Faith Kipyegondouble Olympic 1,500m champion, plans long run 40 kilometers to improve your immunity. A distance that also applies to Wycliffe Kinyamal, second in the 800m of the Xiamen Diamond League with 1’43”66. “The only coach who understands things in a similar way to how I see them is my father Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Gjert). Once we had a very interesting conversation in Zurich and I saw that we are similar, “he explained. The preparation of the Ingebrigtsen brothers has always been characterized by accumulating many kilometers of competition and large training volumes.

About Eliud Kipchoge, he says that he is the easiest to train because of the great discipline he has. “Eliud understood why he is training, he knows what he has to do now and why he is doing it.” “When you’re young, you want to run and represent your country. I don’t know any athlete who didn’t dream of representing their country. When you level up and immerse yourself in the world of sponsors and business, new opportunities arise and you have other incentives. When you pass this stage, you reach the third level where you can see that in sports you can do it influencing many people”, he pointed out about the evolution he experienced in his marathon pupil.

Kipchoge He is now 39 years old and still running, which for his coach has a good explanation. “You can see the evolution he makes as he gets older. He thinks about the legacy he left behind. Without these incentives, we would have finished our races.” About his chances of repeating his Olympic marathon gold for the third time, he said that “my prayers are directed at him to win. If he wins, for me the most important thing is that we will see the longevity in another way. We will see different possibilities as people, sports enthusiasts, scientists, all want to know more about it. “Is it the mind or the body?” he asked. The Paris 2024 Olympic marathon will be held on Saturday, August 10 at 8:00 am