Kipchoge Breaks 2-Hour Barrier in Vienna
Eliud Kipchoge produced the fastest time ever for the 42.2 km distance, clocking 1:59:40.2 at the Ineos159 Challenge in Vienna on Saturday (12).
Pounding his chest and pointing to the crowd as he approached the finish line, the 34-year-old Kenyan became the first man to cover the 26.2 mile marathon distance in under two hours.
“It is a great feeling to make history in sport after Sir Roger Bannister [set the first sub-four-minute mile] in 1954,” said Kipchoge, who broke the world record in the event at the BMW Berlin Marathon last year, clocking 2:01:39. His run today won’t be ratified as a world record, but will nonetheless be remembered as one of the greatest pioneering milestones in athletics history.
“I am the happiest man in the world to be the first human to run under two hours and I can tell people that no human is limited. I expect more people all over the world to run under two hours after today.”
The run kicked off at 08:15 on the Reichsbrücke bridge that spans the Danube before winding its way to the Austrian capital’s iconic Prater park. There the course turned into a 4.4-lap run along the tree-lined Hauptalle that runs through the heart of park. The weather conditions, 9 celsius at the start with wind speeds between 0.5 and 1.5 metres per second, were nearly ideal.
Forty-one pacesetters were employed in the effort, broken down into nine teams who themselves were paced by a green laser light beamed from an electric car whose speed was set at a consistent 2:50 per kilometre pace. That meant Kipchoge was surrounded by a hive of fresh-footed pacesetters from start to finish –five forming a V-shaped human shield ahead of him and two more on each side about two steps behind.
Read more at: BBC
