Kelvin Kiptum was the marathon's shooting star

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The life of one of the brightest young stars in all of Olympic sports was cut horribly short on Sunday when marathon world-record holder Kelvin Kiptum died in a car crash in his native Kenya.

Police said Kiptum, 24, lost control of the car he was driving at around 11 p.m. local time and veered off the road into a ditch before striking a tree. Kiptum's coach, Gervais Hakizimana, was also killed in the wreck, which occurred in the high-altitude region of southwest Kenya where many top distance runners train. Kiptum was born and raised in the area and continued to live there with his wife and two young children.

As Kiptum's family, friends and country wrestle with his sudden death, the distance-running world is left to wonder what might have been.

Kiptum was just 23 — unusually young for a top marathoner — when he shattered fellow Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge's world record by a stunning 34 seconds at last October's Chicago Marathon. That was just the third (and, it turned out, last) marathon for Kiptum, and they all rank among the seven fastest of all time.

Kiptum won his marathon debut in Valencia, Spain in late 2022 in a head-turning 2:01:53. He took last April's London Marathon in 2:01:25 (at the time, the second-fastest record-eligible marathon ever) for the first of his two majors titles. Less than six months later, Kiptum destroyed Kipchoge's world record under ideal conditions in Chicago, where his time of 2:00:35 put him tantalizingly close to the mythical two-hour barrier.

Since marathon is a niche sport, perhaps it's worth pausing here to put these times in context.