Nike Athletes Fail to Break the 2-Hour Marathon Challenge by 30 Seconds
However, they managed to set a new world record.
On Saturday morning in Italy, Nike’s Breaking2 project aimed to, but failed in getting three sponsored athletes to run a full marathon in under two hours, missing the mark by a minuscule half-minute. Taking place on the Formula 1 track at Monza, the three athletes, Lelisa Desisa, Eliud Kipchoge and Zersenay Tadese, ran behind a Tesla Model S pace car at a pace of 4:34 for each mile. Ultimately, Kipchoge finished the marathon at 2:00:25, missing the goal of 1:59:59 by 26 seconds. Regardless, this still puts the ambitious effort well past the previous IAAF world record time of 2:02:57, and putting another feather in the cap of the Nike Zoom Vaporfly 4% that the athletes wore. Watch the full livestream of the event below.
