He must be the greatest. The best marathoner of all time? Without question. The greatest distance runner ever? Quite possibly.

On a hot, humid day on the streets of Sapporo, one that saw the Irish trio of Kevin Seaward, Paul Pollock and Stephen Scullion all well below their best (along with so many others), Eliud Kipchoge again found a way to take this most unpredictable of events and make it routine.

The Kenyan marathon king has for many years brought a certainty to a distance where there that’s long been an unattainable dream, a dictatorial dominance to a realm set up for a democratic sharing of power.

The 35-year-old – who’s understood to be quite a few years older than his listed age – once again crushed his rivals to retain his Olympic marathon title, clocking 2:08:38 to come home with a whopping 80 seconds to spare over his closest pursuer. Turns out rumours of his demise were greatly exaggerated.

Seaward was the first of the Irish, clocking 2:21:45 to finish 58th in the 106-strong field, of which only 76 reached the finish.

Pollock was next home, clocking 2:27:48 to finish 71st, a place and a time to forget for the 36-year-old, but an experience he’ll hold on to forever.

For the third Belfast man who completed the Irish team, Stephen Scullion, things went awry early in the race, the 32-year-old slipping to the rear of the field by 15km and stepping off the course not long after.

Not the Olympic debut the Scullion had in mind, but with a loaded autumn marathon season ahead there’ll be many opportunities for redemption. Given he’s the second fastest Irishman of all time, you’d have to imagine John Treacy’s Irish record of 2:09:15 will be in his sights.

The way conditions were in Sapporo today, with temperatures climbing into the high 20s during the race and high humidity, it was always likely to be an attritional journey around the city, which is located 831km north of Tokyo – the event moved in a bid to avoid oppressive heat in the capital.

Setting off from Odori Park at 7am, things were understandably casual at first, with Kipchoge leading through 10km in a controlled 30:53. At that point the Irish trio were all running in the same pack, a little over 90 seconds adrift of the leaders, with Pollock leading them through in 32:31.

Up front, Kipchoge always kept himself where he is when he feels good – out front, dictating, monitoring every move and making his rivals feel like they should almost ask permission before increasing the pace.

He passed halfway in 1:05:15 among a group of 31, while Pollock clicked through that checkpoint in 1:08:39, with Seaward close behind in 1:08:52.

“I got to halfway bang on pace and started trying to hunt through some people but after 2K everything just went pear shaped,” said Pollock.

“It’s a long way to hold on for the last 10 miles and that’s exactly what I was – it was about getting to the finish line as quickly as possible and as safely as possible.”

The two are both 2:10 athletes, but going through halfway close to four minutes down on their best pace even proved ambitious in those conditions, the wheels coming loose through the third 10km section before, in Pollock’s case, falling off completely over the final miles.

Kipchoge, meanwhile, was just biding his time.

A 15:07 5km split took him to 30km at the front with 10 men on his tail, but it was then – as it so often is – that the world record holder dropped one hell of a hammer.

A 14:28 5km split meant he shed, one by one, all those with the belief or downright delusion they could challenge him for gold. Kipchoge hit 35km almost 30 seconds ahead of anyone else.

It was a lead he kept extending to the finish, which he hit in 2:08:38. Dutch runner Abdi Nageeye won the sprint for second, turning around and urging his training partner Bashir Abdi of Belgium all the way up the home straight, the pair edging Kenya’s Lawrence Cherono into fourth.

Seaward came home 13 minutes behind the winner in 2:21:45, and while that’s a time he won’t be shouting from the rooftops about, having finished in the middle of the field in an Olympic marathon is a performance about which the assistant school principal – who juggles training with full-time work – can be most proud.

For Pollock, the race became not about thriving after halfway, but simply surviving.

“It’s the Olympics, it’s never an embarrassment but it’s as disappointing as they come today,” he said. “All of a sudden the body said no and whenever it says no there’s no coming back from that. As mentally strong as you try to push through, there’s just no coming back.”

In the home straight he raised his arms in celebration as he hobbled towards the finish, his legs cramping.

“They always say the marathon is emotional towards the end, I’ve never really felt that before,” he said.

“I’ve got a two-year-old son at home and it’s the longest I’ve ever been away from him and that last 2K your thoughts go to him, and to just enjoy the experience at that stage.”

For Kipchoge, his second Olympic title secured his status as the greatest marathoner of all time, and the Kenyan was asked after what the staging of the Games has meant for the world.

“It means there is hope,” he said. “It means we are on the right track to our normal lives. Covid-19 will go – that’s the meaning of the Olympics.”

For Kipchoge, normal life has long meant dominating the world’s best distance runners, something he first did in 2003 when winning the 5000m world title ahead of all-time greats Kenenisa Bekele and Hicham El Guerrouj.

Something he did again today, 18 years later, in a manner that suggests his reign is nowhere near its end.