THREE ELITE RUNNERS, backed by a small army of scientists, will attempt an audacious assault on the Marathon’s two-hour mark tomorrow.
Reigning Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya, Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa and Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese will aim to complete the classic marathon distance of 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometres) in less than two hours on a fixed loop at the Monza National Autodrome racing circuit in Italy.
In their pursuit of the landmark time the trio will need to set a ferocious pace of 4min 34sec per mile — seven seconds quicker than the pace of the existing world record of 2:02:57 set by Dennis Kimetto of Kenya at the 2014 Berlin Marathon.
“People have been thinking about the magical sub-two-hour marathon for a long time,” said Wouter Hoogkamer, lead researcher of a study recently published by the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Hoogkamer says that his team have set out a series of mathematical calculations demonstrating how an elite marathon runner could break the two-hour barrier.
“Our calculations show that a sub-two-hour marathon time could happen right now, but it would require the right course and a lot of organisation,” Hoogkamer said in the study published by the journal Sports Medicine.
Slicing roughly three minutes off the marathon world record requires a perfect alignment of human physiology, state-of-the-art equipment and perfect conditions.
Kipchoge, Desisa and Tadese were selected by Nike after an exhaustive analysis of their physical make-up and technique.
“We have spent a long time exploring many dimensions of their performance, like the maximum oxygen an athlete can consume; the critical speed, or threshold an athlete is capable of maintaining; and the energy required; to their economy of running,” a spokeswoman for Nike told AFP.
“We know that these runners are perfectly equipped and wanting to run something that has never been run before.”
The Colorado study estimated that to be successful, competitors would need footwear roughly 100 grams lighter than those worn by Kimetto during his 2014 world record. That’s where Nike comes in, we suppose.
The global brand has duly produced the lightweight ‘Zoom Elite’ runners which they claim are ’the ideal blend of weightlessness, energy return and aerodynamics’.
Kipchoge’s preparations for the event have been encouraging as he clocked a half marathon time of 59.17 on the Monza track. But even if the two-hour mark is broken, the time won’t stand as an IAAF world record as it will not be taking place under sanctioned race conditions.
Nike is unfazed.
“The course will be IAAF ratified and will meet to all marathon course requirements including independently measured course distance, start versus finish location and course elevation,” a spokeswoman told AFP.
Other observers question whether the sub-two-hour attempt even needs the stamp of approval from governing body the IAAF.
Ed Caesar, author of the 2015 book “Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon”, notes that Roger Bannister’s iconic breaching of the four-minute-mile barrier in 1954 was frowned upon in certain quarters because of the Briton’s use of pace runners.
“People thought it was cheapening to have two other guys helping Bannister, but we don’t remember that,” Caesar told The Wall Street Journal.
“There are always ideas of what is sportsmanlike, but the fact is we are interested on whether it’s possible to run a marathon in less than two hours.”
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