Monza (Italy): Eliud Kipchoge ran the quickest recorded marathon here Saturday, crossing the line at the Formula One track in two hours and 23 seconds but missing out on an ambitious attempt to break the two-hour barrier.
The 32-year-old’s time smashed the official mark of 2:02:57 seconds set by fellow Kenyan Dennis Kimetto in Berlin in 2014 but will not enter the record books largely due to a non-compliant system of pace-making.
“This is not the end of the attempt of runners on two hours,” the Olympic champion said after the race, likening the challenge to climbing a tree. “When you step on the branches… immediately you go to the next one.”
Kipchoge rated his timing as the finest performance in a career that includes a gold medal at the Rio Games last year and a personal best official time of 2:03:05 seconds, the third-fastest in history.
“This journey has been good, it has been hard, it has been seven months hard preparation. It has been history in the world of sport,” asserted the Kenyan.
Kipchoge and the only other competitors, Eritrean Zersenay Tadese and Ethiopian Lelisa Desisa, ran behind an arrow-head formation of pacemakers, to reduce drag, and a car beaming a green line on the road behind it to show the required speed for the sub-two hour target.
In 2014, ‘Runners World’ magazine predicted a sub-two marathon under normal race conditions would not happen until 2075, based on analysis of more than 10,000 top performances.
Thirty pacemakers were split into groups of six, who took turn to set a tempo in a race run 63 years to the day after Briton Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile in less than four minutes.
The sub-two hour mark required a pace below four minutes and 35 seconds per mile, which the determined Kipchoge managed to match until falling behind the pace car in the last two laps of the 2.4 km circuit.
The 35-year-old Eritrean finished in 2:06:51 second, followed by the youngest, 26-year-old Desisa, in 2:14:10 seconds.
Reuters
