PR campaign behind brief 'renaming' of Berlin Street after a Kenyan marathon champion

On September 24, 2023, this Facebook post shared an image of a street sign reading “Kipchoge Straße”.

“Straße” is the German word for “street”.

“Eliud Kipchoge is already honoured with a Street named after him in Berlin ... (sic),” reads part of the post published by a Kenyan Facebook account.

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A screenshot of the misleading post, taken on September 26, 2023

The same claim was repeated in other Facebook posts here, here and here.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, this account shared the same picture and asked: “Is this Eliud Kipchoge Street in Berlin, Germany or I am seeing my own things?”

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A screenshot of the misleading post on X taken on September 26, 2023

The claim circulated hours after Kipchoge won the Berlin Marathon for the fifth time in his career by crossing the line in 2hr 02min 42sec (archived report).

Days before the race, a mural of the Olympic champion was unveiled (archived link) at the clubhouse of Berlin-based running club Berlin Braves, located at Wassertorstrasse 11 in the German capital.

The artwork was produced by Dutch artist collective Kamp Seedorf in collaboration with Kipchoge’s professional running group, the NN Running Team.

The unveiling was featured in Kenyan news reports here and here (archived here and here).

But the claim about a street being named after the Kenyan marathoner is misleading.

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Nathan Friedenberg, an official at Berlin’s Department of Art, Culture and History, confirmed to AFP Fact Check that “no street has been named after Mr Kipchoge”.

“I can assure you that this is false information,” Friedenberg said in an email, explaining that a sticker had been placed over the street’s name.

Friedenberg added that the process of renaming streets or roads in Berlin takes several years.

A photograph of the sign supplied by an AFP fact checker in Germany after Kipchoge won the men’s race shows that it reads “Kurfürstenstraße” and not “Kipchoge Straße”.

This sign can also be seen on Google Maps.

Where did the picture come from?

AFP Fact Check searched Instagram and found the account belonging to Kipchoge’s professional running group, the NN Running Team, which had posted (archived here) several pictures of the “Kipchoge Straße” street sign, including the one we are debunking.

Julia Onclin, a marketing official at NN Running Team, told AFP Fact Check no street in Berlin had been named after Kipchoge, adding that street signs featuring the runner’s name were part of a campaign dubbed “#Back2TheStreets”.

“I can tell you that there is no street in Berlin that has been named after Eliud, this is simply not true,” Onclin said.

“However, we created some ‘Kipchoge Straße’ street signs as part of our fall campaign #Back2TheStreets and we put those on top of some existing street signs in Berlin to create some cool content; afterwards, we took them down again.”