Athletics: challenging the two-hour barrier
“The holy grail of the world’s first two-hour marathon remains elusive,” said Ben Bloom in The Daily Telegraph – but only just. In a stunt organised and funded by Nike, three elite runners set off early last Saturday morning around Monza’s Formula 1 track in Italy. Their aim? To cover 26.2 miles in under two hours, shaving almost three minutes off the existing record of 2hrs 2mins 57secs set by Kenya’s Dennis Kimetto in 2014. Two of the three quickly dropped off the formidable 4mins 34secsper-mile pace. But reigning Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge kept it up for most of the way, crossing the line in an astonishing 2hrs 25secs. That won’t make the official record books, as the runners were aided by rotating pacesetters and moped-riding drinks carriers. But it was still an incredible “feat of human endurance”.
Many critics dismissed “Breaking2” as an “expensive PR and marketing exercise”, said Richard Conway on BBC Sport online. Certainly, it is no coincidence that the new trainers worn by the runners (Nike claims they improve athletes’ “running efficiency” by up to 4%) go on sale next month. But this was also a “laudable” bid to push the limits of athletic achievement. Monza was chosen because it’s flat and has “gentle corners” and reliable weather. During training, Nike’s “legion of scientists, performance coaches, nutritionists and medical staff” left nothing to chance. Among the many pieces of kit they used were mobile ultrasound units, to measure glycogen levels in the athletes’ legs, and ingestible thermometers, to check their core temperatures as they ran.
The advantages thus gained were quite substantial, said Sean Ingle in The Observer. The pacers, working in groups of six, “adopted an arrowhead formation” that essentially served as a windbreak for the runners. They were also guided by an electric car, which probably provided yet more aerodynamic assistance. But none of this should “eclipse the fact that this was one of the most remarkable and determined displays of distance running ever seen”. Yes, Kipchoge had assistance no other runner has had before, and still fell just short. “But his was the most glorious of failures.”