Faith Kipyegon certain a woman will break four-minute mile barrier within a decade
Faith Kipyegon remains convinced that a woman will break the four-minute mile barrier within 10 years, despite falling more than six seconds short in her record attempt in Paris.
It was a disappointing result for Kipyegon and her sponsor Nike, who had hoped that aerodynamic skinsuits, lighter super spikes and a team of 13 pacers would help the 31-year-old Kenyan get within touching distance of the famous mark.
But speaking to the Guardian on the morning after running 4min 06.42sec in Paris, Kipyegon insisted she was still proud to have rolled the dice – and to have run a mile quicker than any woman in history. She also predicted that new technology was coming that would also help Britain's Keely Hodgkinson break the women's 800m world record of 1min 53.28sec, which has stood since 1983.
'Absolutely there will be a woman running a mile in under four minutes,' she said. 'And I think it will take less than 10 years. And if it doesn't come my way, it will be someone else doing it.'
Asked why she was so confident, given the gap was still more than six seconds, she replied: 'Going forward, the technology will be even higher than what I was using yesterday. So I think one day, one time, it will happen.'
Kipyegon admitted that she had struggled in the final 200m, having heard the bell in 3:01. But she insisted she would not have changed anything about her attempt.
'Birds sometimes fall but they fly again,' she said. 'I believe I will still lower the world record of 4.07. I want to get it very close to the four minutes mark. And I believe I can still run under 4.05 in a race with female pacemakers.'
Kipyegon's next race will be over 1500m at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, next week, and she insists she is in shape to challenge her world record of 3:49.04. However she said there are no plans yet to have another crack at the four-minute mile barrier.
In Paris she spoke to Hodgkinson, who told her she is hungry to go faster once she has recovered from a hamstring injury. 'I talked with Keely yesterday about everything,' said Kipyegon. 'And my run was a huge inspiration for her. She's hungry to go under 1.54 in the 800m. And I think Keely Hodgkinson one day, one time, will run under 1.53. She is so fast.'
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Nike's chief innovation officer, Tony Bignell, who has worked with the company since helping design spikes for Michael Johnson at the Atlanta and Sydney Games, promised that there would be more innovation and attempts at breaking records. 'Yes, I've seen things in the lab, and I've put things on my foot where I've thought: 'I've never felt that before,'' said Bignell. 'And that's coming.
'Last night could have been anywhere on a scale of zero to 10, but we took the risk. And taking risks is a good thing.'
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Georgia Hunter Bell has just finished a jog around the idyllic Tuileries Garden. It's a scorching Friday in the Parisian sun, and the 1,500m Olympic bronze medalist has started to feel the fatigue from last night's run. It was no ordinary run, either, a pacing job that didn't quite reach 800m, an event she has claimed gold in a Diamond League meet already this season. But that searing pace still lingers because Hunter Bell travelled at sub-four minute mile pace, nine seconds faster per mile than her national record pace needed to claim bronze at last year's Paris Olympics in the 1,500m. Her endeavour was all part of Faith Kipyegon and Nike 's audacious attempt to shatter a barrier first transcended by Sir Roger Bannister in 1954, and while more than 2,000 men have followed, no woman has achieved the same feat. 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'So it felt a lot easier than if you were just trying to run a lap on your own. And so it was cool to feel that, I think, also just from kind of an emotional, less tangible standpoint. It felt really nice. 'The guys around you talking about how they can help you out. You just feel really supported. And it really made me think that, yeah, she's obviously much better than I am. So if it felt like that for me, then surely it will feel really good for her. It gave me a lot of faith that she could do it.' Hunter Bell and her fellow Nike athletes were tasked with training twice per day since Sunday, with the team spending each day together, including meals, to build chemistry and cohesion to perfectly execute the plan on Thursday. 'I've never seen Faith like struggle,' Hunter Bell recalls. 'Like every time she races us, be that in an Olympic final, the Diamond League, she's always so clearly ahead and although she's obviously working hard, she seems totally within herself and there's no struggle on her face. 'Yesterday was the first time that I've really seen her hurting, a little bit of form going, a little bit of strain on the face. So that really just put into perspective just how hard of a feat it is. 'So I think, in hindsight, it will now be a case of chipping down [the women's mile world record]. It's not going to go from 4:07 to 3:59, it's going to be chipped away over the years like she's already taken a second and a half off. 'Think about Eliud Kipchoge's 1:59 marathon, that had some failures before it, then they got it right. So I think they'll be able to take away some learnings, then just hope that in the future, they'll be able to bring it down.' 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I think you have to have a really strong endurance base to be able to do a challenge like that. Having a great kick is amazing. Coming through in two minutes is well within Keely's and my capability, but those two laps make such a difference. 'It's getting into the practice of running 60s consistently versus what Keely can do, running 52-53 seconds per lap. That's amazing speed, but you just can't do four of those back to back. There's just no way.' Nike will be determined in the coming months to make refinements, much like they did between Kipchoge's first attack on the two-hour marathon barrier in Monza in 2017, before returning to Vienna two years later, with tens of thousands of fans on the streets able to witness history. 'I think hosting it in a full stadium is a good idea, maybe at the end of a Diamond League as the final event,' Hunter Bell concludes. 'Then you'll definitely have a sold-out stadium, such as London in a couple of weeks, which is sold out at 60,000. 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Faith Kipyegon remains convinced that a woman will break the four-minute mile barrier within 10 years, despite falling more than six seconds short in her record attempt in Paris. It was a disappointing result for Kipyegon and her sponsor Nike, who had hoped that aerodynamic skinsuits, lighter super spikes and a team of 13 pacers would help the 31-year-old Kenyan get within touching distance of the famous mark. But speaking to the Guardian on the morning after running 4min 06.42sec in Paris, Kipyegon insisted she was still proud to have rolled the dice – and to have run a mile quicker than any woman in history. She also predicted that new technology was coming that would also help Britain's Keely Hodgkinson break the women's 800m world record of 1min 53.28sec, which has stood since 1983. 'Absolutely there will be a woman running a mile in under four minutes,' she said. 'And I think it will take less than 10 years. And if it doesn't come my way, it will be someone else doing it.' Asked why she was so confident, given the gap was still more than six seconds, she replied: 'Going forward, the technology will be even higher than what I was using yesterday. So I think one day, one time, it will happen.' Kipyegon admitted that she had struggled in the final 200m, having heard the bell in 3:01. But she insisted she would not have changed anything about her attempt. 'Birds sometimes fall but they fly again,' she said. 'I believe I will still lower the world record of 4.07. I want to get it very close to the four minutes mark. And I believe I can still run under 4.05 in a race with female pacemakers.' Kipyegon's next race will be over 1500m at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, next week, and she insists she is in shape to challenge her world record of 3:49.04. However she said there are no plans yet to have another crack at the four-minute mile barrier. In Paris she spoke to Hodgkinson, who told her she is hungry to go faster once she has recovered from a hamstring injury. 'I talked with Keely yesterday about everything,' said Kipyegon. 'And my run was a huge inspiration for her. She's hungry to go under 1.54 in the 800m. And I think Keely Hodgkinson one day, one time, will run under 1.53. She is so fast.' Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Nike's chief innovation officer, Tony Bignell, who has worked with the company since helping design spikes for Michael Johnson at the Atlanta and Sydney Games, promised that there would be more innovation and attempts at breaking records. 'Yes, I've seen things in the lab, and I've put things on my foot where I've thought: 'I've never felt that before,'' said Bignell. 'And that's coming. 'Last night could have been anywhere on a scale of zero to 10, but we took the risk. And taking risks is a good thing.'
