It’s one of those achievements of human endeavor, like Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile, that becomes the mark for future competitors to accept to exceed.
Kenyan Olympic marathoner, Eliud Kipchoge ran the 26 miles of a full marathon in Vienna, Austria in 1 hour and 59 minutes earlier today.
The bid, similar to Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon attempt in Italy two years ago, featured packs of pacers from an announced group of 41 taking turns, a lead car beaming lasers out the back as a guide and special Nike shoes. The final pace group shed from Kipchoge so he could run the final 500 meters alone. Kipchoge sped up, taking the projected finish down from 1:50:50 in the last mile. More
The time is not official, however because it was a closed race for Kipchoge alone and he had the assistance of multiple pacers. More
This was a very fine achievement, and Kipchoge is an awesome athlete. However, since this was a special run set up especially for the sub-2 hour attempt, it isn’t quite the same thing as Bannister’s sub-4 minute mile race in which he competed against five other very fine runners.
Awsome, now do it in a crowd.
But he rigged it fair and square!
After the disgrace of obama, Kenya has something to redeem itself with.
Geez, I’m not sure I can ride a bicycle 26 miles in 2 hours.
Hell, not even my Yugo can do that!
When “middle aged” I could do a 3.2 her marathon. Then hurt for a week! Knew a lot of runners ( handball men’ like pitchers, must run to be good – and I was good!) nobody under 2.5 hre!
this , if true, is better than Banister – I was a kid when he did it! Im old
Yeah, but can he speak Austrian?