Elijah Kiptarbei Lagat (born 19 June 1966) was the winner of the 104th running of the Boston Marathon held in 2000.
He won in the closest finish in the race's history when he edged out Gezahegne Abera of Ethiopia and fellow Kenyan and previous year's champion, Moses Tanui.
Lagat's win enabled the Kenyans to capture the individual men's Boston Marathon title for the 10th straight year.
Despite Kenya's many successes in marathoning, they were unable to secure an Olympic gold medal until Samuel Wanjiru's record setting run in the 2008 Beijing games.
[1] He blamed his failure to finish on excessive preparation for the Olympic marathon; he claimed he wanted to show the Kenyan athletics officials he really could win but overtrained as a result.
[2] Lagat began running simply to lose weight and not necessarily to compete at the highest level of the sport.
Prior to the 2002 general elections, Lagat was persuaded by his friends to vie for the Emgwen Constituency parliamentary seats.