This image has been shared quite a number of times, both on Facebook and Twitter. Posts attached to it claim that this is a street in Berlin, Germany named after Eliud Kipchoge. The name of the street reads; Kipchoge Straße.’
Background
On September 24, 2023, during the #BerlinMarathon2023, double Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge won the 42KM men’s category. Eliud is widely considered the fastest long-distance runner and a world record holder. At the age of 38, Kipchoge has won 16 of the 19 marathons he has been part of. Five of these, are marathons he has run and won in Berlin, Germany, thus earning him colloquial titles: ‘The King of Berlin,’ ‘The Marathon King,’ and ‘King-Choge.’
Verification
With such an illustrious career, an image claiming to show a street in Germany honouring Kipchoge could easily pass as legitimate. However, this street is not available on Google Maps.
An identifying factor about streets in Germany is the fonts used in labelling its road signs. According to this website, Germany uses three variables of the DIN1451 font: Engschrift, Mittelschrift and Breitschrift. A medium Mittelschrift and a condensed Engschift version of the DN 1451 are often used. However, Breischrift may be found on older road signs.
Peter Wiegel, a German font designer includes these versions on his websites.
Myfonts.com identifies the font used in this image as; DIN Next Arabic Bold.
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A publication by Max Hertzberg provides more details about the country’s street naming conventions. Most streets and squares named after people have no spacing between the name of the person and the suffix. The publication adds, “streets and squares named after multi-named people or things are hyphenated.”
Another publication by Deutsche Welle corroborates this information.
More details show that this image was part of three others which were shared by the NNRunning Team, on September 24, 2023, under #BACK2THESTREETS. In an email to PesaCheck, NN Running Team’s marketing director; Marleen Vink-Rennings explained that the images were used for marketing purposes.
“The images you have seen are fake signs being placed in the streets of Berlin to hype the appearance of Eliud Kipchoge in the streets of Berlin.” Rennings explained.
Further a reverse image search provides this publication by AFP with; “Kurfürstenstraße” street’s actual name. Going by this name, this Google street view shows the same street sign and a possible vantage point where this image could have been taken.
However, on September 21, 2023, a mural of Kipchoge was unveiled at the Berlin Braves located at the Wassertorstrasse. This artwork was painted by Kamp Seedorf in collaboration with Kipchoge’s professional running group, the NN running team and Global Sports Communication.
Verdict
This image does not show a street in Germany named after Eliud Kipchoge.
This fact check was published by Piga Firimbi with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck and African Fact-Checking Alliance.
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