'Breaking4' set to shake up the athletics world

After 'Breaking2', where Kenyan marathon icon Eliud Kipchoge, with the help of Nike during an unofficial race and quite a few aids, attempted to run under 2 hours for the first time at the mythical marathon distance of 42.195 km but just missed it, Nike is now launching a new challenge. Kipchoge set things right after his first attempt, this time with the help of Ineos. He ran this unofficial marathon in 1:59:40 and made sports history. And now, it seems a new milestone in sports history is on the horizon.

Nike now wants to try to break the magical barrier in the mile with the Kenyan Faith Kipyegon . A mile, that's four laps of 400 metres on the athletics track. After 1,600 metres, Nike dreams of stopping the clock under 4 minutes. If successful, Faith Kipyegon would be the first woman to ever achieve this.

The record attempt will take place on Thursday, 26th June at the Stade Charléty in Paris . Kipyegon's personal best in the mile is currently 4’07″64. She needs to shave a fair bit off that to succeed in this ambitious project.

"I don't believe it's a question of if a woman can break 4 minutes in the mile. It's a matter of when we will do it" , writes Faith Kipyegon , full of confidence on Instagram.

(Raul Stiens - Illustration: ©Image by Jenny Hernandez from Pixabay)