Faith Kipyegon fails to become first woman to break four-minute mile
An unofficial world record, just, but immortality of the sort bestowed on Roger Bannister can wait.
Exactly 71 years after Bannister became the first man to run a mile under four minutes, the Kenyan great Faith Kipyegon has failed in an audacious attempt to become the first woman to emulate that feat.
Despite a 13-strong team of pacemakers, which included the British athletes Georgia Hunter-Bell, Jemma Reekie and Elliott Giles, Kipyegon faded notably over the final lap of her attempt to finish in 4min 6.42sec. That was still more than some 1.22sec faster than her official women's world record but well short of an audacious target that poses a major question: If Kipyegon, perhaps the greatest female middle-distance runner cannot do it even with the might of Nike's multi-million innovation department behind her, could any woman?
In fairness, the odds were always stacked against her. She would have needed to take almost eight seconds off a world record that was itself five seconds better than anyone had managed before. And, in the breeze of the Stade Stade Charléty in Paris, reality struck and the difference did indeed prove insurmountable.
She had begun well enough. An opening 400m of 60.20sec was pretty much exactly what she wanted and, while she did broadly hang onto that pace to reach 1,000m in 2min 30.68sec, the sight of her steadily dropping into the group of slower pacemakers told its own story.
Some may primarily see this as a giant advert for Nike and, while that part of the equation was undoubtedly fulfilled, there was much that could be taken from an occasion attended by much of the great and good of athletics, including Carl Lewis, Keely Hodgkinson and Eliud Kipchoge. Hodgkinson said that it would 'inspire' people from all over the world and, for a sport trying desperately to remain visible to a younger generation of sports fans, it was an occasion that would certainly have appealed beyond a core audience.
Kipyegon's run was also mightily impressive by any normal parameters. It was a regulation track with bespoke spikes and clothing which conformed to World Athletics rules. The use of male pace-makers was the one element that prevented this being official.
Like Kipchoge, who failed with his first attempt at a sub two hour marathon with pacemakers, it may also serve as a catalyst for further attempts. A paper written by a group of sports scientists who had been working with Kipyegon, largely from the University of Exeter, urged caution in a paper published last month. 'With additional specialisation in middle-distance running events, further under-standing of the physiological underpinnings of successful middle-distance running performances, and optimisation of the physiology and training of the current world's best 1,500 mrunners, we contend that a woman may break the 4-min mile barrier within the next decade,' they wrote. On this evidence, that remains optimistic.
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An unofficial world record, just, but immortality of the sort bestowed on Roger Bannister can wait. Exactly 71 years after Bannister became the first man to run a mile under four minutes, the Kenyan great Faith Kipyegon has failed in an audacious attempt to become the first woman to emulate that feat. Despite a 13-strong team of pacemakers, which included the British athletes Georgia Hunter-Bell, Jemma Reekie and Elliott Giles, Kipyegon faded notably over the final lap of her attempt to finish in 4min 6.42sec. That was still more than some 1.22sec faster than her official women's world record but well short of an audacious target that poses a major question: If Kipyegon, perhaps the greatest female middle-distance runner cannot do it even with the might of Nike's multi-million innovation department behind her, could any woman? In fairness, the odds were always stacked against her. She would have needed to take almost eight seconds off a world record that was itself five seconds better than anyone had managed before. And, in the breeze of the Stade Stade Charléty in Paris, reality struck and the difference did indeed prove insurmountable. She had begun well enough. An opening 400m of 60.20sec was pretty much exactly what she wanted and, while she did broadly hang onto that pace to reach 1,000m in 2min 30.68sec, the sight of her steadily dropping into the group of slower pacemakers told its own story. Some may primarily see this as a giant advert for Nike and, while that part of the equation was undoubtedly fulfilled, there was much that could be taken from an occasion attended by much of the great and good of athletics, including Carl Lewis, Keely Hodgkinson and Eliud Kipchoge. Hodgkinson said that it would 'inspire' people from all over the world and, for a sport trying desperately to remain visible to a younger generation of sports fans, it was an occasion that would certainly have appealed beyond a core audience. Kipyegon's run was also mightily impressive by any normal parameters. It was a regulation track with bespoke spikes and clothing which conformed to World Athletics rules. The use of male pace-makers was the one element that prevented this being official. Like Kipchoge, who failed with his first attempt at a sub two hour marathon with pacemakers, it may also serve as a catalyst for further attempts. A paper written by a group of sports scientists who had been working with Kipyegon, largely from the University of Exeter, urged caution in a paper published last month. 'With additional specialisation in middle-distance running events, further under-standing of the physiological underpinnings of successful middle-distance running performances, and optimisation of the physiology and training of the current world's best 1,500 mrunners, we contend that a woman may break the 4-min mile barrier within the next decade,' they wrote. On this evidence, that remains optimistic.
