29-04-2025
Faith Kipyegon's moonshot mile
Kenya's Faith Kipyegon is already one of the most accomplished athletes of all time, with multiple world records (in the mile and 1,500 meters) and Olympic gold medals. But she wants to take it a step further.
Why it matters: Kipyegon will try to make history this summer by becoming the first woman to run a sub-four-minute mile.
It's an audacious attempt to shave more than seven seconds off the 31-year-old's current record (4:07.64). But to Kipyegon, pushing boundaries is the point.
"I'm a three-time Olympic champion. I've achieved World Championship titles," she said in a statement. "I thought, What else? Why not dream outside the box?"
Driving the news: Nike announced the "Breaking4" partnership between the brand and its track star April 23, pledging "to create a holistic system of support that optimizes every aspect of her attempt."
While Kipyegon trains in Kenya with her mentor and training partner, Olympic champ Eliud Kipchoge, a team at Nike headquarters in Oregon is crafting her armor and analyzing her scans to enhance her performance, Nike contributing writer Maisie Skidmore reports.
They'll produce custom shoes and apparel fitted to Kipyegon's body and optimized for her running stride.
The location choice for her attempt — the rubber track of Stade Charléty in Paris — was also strategic: It's the same place she set new world records in the 5,000-meter in 2023 and the 1,500-meter in 2024.
Kipyegon will stare down the historic finish line on June 26.
Zoom in: Nike said that while no woman is currently positioned to break the four-minute barrier alone, "the right partnership" could change that reality.
"Alongside Faith, our innovators are breaking barriers by combining cutting-edge sports science with revolutionary footwear and apparel innovation to help her achieve a truly historic goal," says Nike CEO Elliott Hill.
Between the lines: If anyone can do it, it's Kipyegon.
A study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science in February found that with "greatly improved" — yet "reasonable" — aerodynamic drafting off pacesetters, Kipyegon could break the barrier.
Rodger Kram, one of the authors of the February study, told the New York Times it's likely "lots of bros are going to say, 'No way a woman is ever going to run four minutes." He added, "But people have said women can't do a lot of things, and then they have."
Flashback: Just within the last century, women in running have done just that, time and time again.
In the early 1900s, running was considered to be "dangerous" for women, said Maggie Mertens — a journalist and author of "Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women."
Even after women's Olympic track and field events made their debut in 1928, "there was this idea that there should be limitations on how far women were allowed to run," she said.
When women completed the 800-meter race in the 1928 Olympics, reasonably winded and tired, sportswriters lamented the scene, with one describing it as a "pitiful spectacle," said Bonnie Morris, author of "What's the Score?: 25 Years of Teaching Women's Sports."
The race was banned until it was reinstated in 1960. And it wasn't until 1984 that the women's marathon was added to the Games.
Since then, women haven't stopped busting boundaries.
Case in point: Kipyegon set her world records after giving birth to her daughter, coming back from her maternity leave even faster and stronger.
Reality check: The gap between a 4:07.64 mile and less than four minutes can be sprawling — even for a once-in-a-generation talent.
"It's a big goal to shave 8 seconds off the mile, but she feels ready," Seema Simmons, Nike's vice president of global women's running, told ESPN. "She's challenging decades of incremental progress in a very short span of time."
The bottom line: The gear and the venue are important — but women have kicked down doors, whether they were wearing proper footwear or not, Morris notes. When Bobbi Gibb was training to become the first woman to run the Boston Marathon, she did so in nurses' shoes.
