Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge falls 26 seconds short of breaking 2-hour barrier in marathon

Reporting from MONZA, Italy —  Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya ran the fastest marathon ever Saturday while falling 26 seconds short of becoming the first person in history to cover the 26.2-mile distance in under two hours.

Kipchoge finished the Breaking2 event in an impressive 2 hours, 25 seconds, eclipsing Dennis Kimetto’s world mark of 2:02:57 by 2½ minutes and raising hopes that one of sport’s most famous barriers can be broken.

“We are human,” Kipchoge said. “I am happy that I’ve reduced by 2½ minutes the world record.”

The Kenyan added: “We are going up the tree, I have lifted a branch and I am going onto the next one. This is not the end of the attempt of runners on two hours.”

Kipchoge also broke his personal best time of 2:03:05, set at the London Marathon last year.

Organizers first listed his time as a second faster, then changed it to 25 seconds off the 2-hour mark.

“I rank this as the highest ever performance in my life,” Kipchoge said. “The aim of ‘Breaking2’ was to pass the message that running less than two-hour marathon is possible. That message is really special to me.”

The attempt at Monza’s Formula One race course, organized by Nike, did not go down as an official world record, sanctioned by the IAAF, due to variables like pacers entering mid-race and drinks being given to runners via mopeds.

And, after three years of planning, the shoe company’s audacious goal of breaking the two-hour barrier remains just that.

Nike Chief Executive Mark Parker emphasized the progress that had been made.

“Eliud Kipchoge ran 26.2 miles faster than any human ever,” Parker said. “This achievement represents more than a race. It’s a moment of global inspiration that will encourage every athlete, in every community, to push the limits of their potential.”

Two-time Boston Marathon winner Lelisa Desisa, from Ethiopia, and Eritrean half-marathon world-record holder Zersenay Tadese were also part of the Breaking2 project, but finished well off the pace.

Desisa was dropped after 50 minutes, with Tadese falling back shortly afterward. The duo still completed the 17½ laps of the 1½-mile Monza track with Tadese shaving nearly four minutes off his personal best with a time of 2:06:51. Desisa finished in 2:14:10.

That left just Kipchoge chasing the landmark time.

The 32-year-old continued in his trademark relaxed style and passed the halfway mark in 59:54, but his average pace of 4:36 per mile was just not quite enough, despite his final sprint to the tape.

Kipchoge would have needed an average time of less than 4:35 per mile — an improvement of about seven seconds per mile on Kimetto’s record, or around 2.5%.

“I tried to maintain the pace,” he said. “As a human you are not a machine so you cannot go 2.50 exactly, and those micro-seconds really have an effect.”