Jacob Kiplimo Says a Hamstring Problem Cost Him His Chicago Title

Jacob Kiplimo came to Chicago on Sunday as the defending champion, ran side by side with Amos Kipruto through 30K on course record pace, and then faded to fourth in 2:04:18, more than three minutes behind the winner. When we looked at where his race came apart, Kiplimo had not said anything about what went wrong. He has now, in an Instagram post shared with his management company Rosa Associati, and the cause was his hamstring.

“Until around the 30K mark, my body was responding well and everything was going according to plan,” he wrote. “Then I felt a problem with my hamstring, and the race suddenly became a completely different challenge.”

It was Kiplimo who pushed the pace a little after 25K, and only Kipruto could go with him as they covered the next 5K in 13:58. The two of them reached 30K in 1:25:28, right about where Kiplimo says the trouble started. Kipruto was 12 seconds clear by 35K, and the 5K after that took Kiplimo 16:32. Tadese Takele and Milkesa Mengesha both went past him before the line as Kipruto won in 2:01:09. Kiplimo called the final 12K “a battle of determination, pushing through the pain and finding the strength to make it to the finish line.”

His coach, Peter Chelangat, was struggling to explain it as soon as the race was over. “I really don’t understand because Kiplimo was in very good shape,” he told Uganda’s Daily Monitor, before adding, “He got a hamstring problem.” Fourth place was his first finish outside the top three in a road race since 2015, by the Monitor‘s count, a span of 32 races.

A Run of Personal Bests Ends

Until Sunday, every marathon Kiplimo had run was a personal best. He was second to Sabastian Sawe in London on his debut in April 2025 in 2:03:37, won Chicago last October in 2:02:23, and ran 2:00:28 for third in London this April, in the race where Sawe went under two hours. He had not raced since London, and he went into Chicago talking about defending his title, something no man had done there since 2010, while much of the talk outside his camp was about a world record attempt.

A hamstring has cost him a major championship before. He picked up a right hamstring strain in a workout in Kapchorwa on Aug. 1, 2023, and had to withdraw from the World Championships in Budapest, where he was entered in the 5,000m and 10,000m, Citius Mag reported at the time. He had won the world cross-country title only six months earlier. Kiplimo has not said which leg was affected in Chicago or how serious the problem is.

Clayton Young went into the same race already knowing about his own hamstring. A scan almost four weeks earlier had found a 12-centimeter tear in a tendon, and he still finished seventh in 2:05:23 as the top American, just over a minute behind Kiplimo.

Kiplimo, who turns 26 next month, has not named his next race. “I’ll take some time to recover and enjoy precious moments with my family before getting back to work,” he wrote. “We will come back stronger and be ready for the next challenge.”