A Nike sponsored runner has broken the marathon world record by more than two minutes. Although the time is not an official new world record, the ad stunt has to be.
At 5.45am on Saturday, May 6, Nike attempted to make history by breaking the marathon running record of two hours.
It’s not a secret – the challenge has made news headlines throughout the world – the attempt failed. But by just 25 seconds. Nike runner, Eliud Kipchoge, did however run faster by far than the existing record holder and fellow Kenyan, Kenyan Dennis, reset the record in Berlin in 2014 at 2:02.57. He ran to schedule, at a pace below four minutes and 35 seconds per mile, until the last two laps only.
But Kipchoge has not become the new official world record holder. The system of pace-making that Nike used is not recognised by the IAAF.
But all of these things make great news. And that was Nike’s aim. The record attempt on a closed track – the Formula One course, Monza in Italy, was created to promote Nike and Nike’s new lightweight shoe, Zoom Vaporfly Elite, with carbon-fibre in-sole.
To that end, Nike had pitched the event as sport’s “moon shot”, assembled 700 spectators and broadcast the race in its entirety live on a dedicated Twitter landing page and on the Breaking2 Facebook page, so that people throughout the world could join in on the excitement. The 26.2 mile course required the runners to finish 17.5 laps of Monza’s junior circuit.
Nike created videos of the race, a trailer, profiles of the three runners, the development of the shoe, why Monza, and how and why the attempt was made.
Three runners were meticulously trained during seven months of preparation. 32-year-old Kipchoge ran with Eritrean, Zersenay Tadese, and 26 year-old Ethiopian, Lelisa Desisaran, behind an arrowhead formation of 6 pace-setters to shield the runners from win as well as an electric car shining a green laser line on the road behind it to show the required speed to reach Nike’s below two-minute target. 30 pace-setters in total were split into teams of three runners, each of whom was instructed to run 4.8 km at the two-hour pace, three times. It is this pace-setter rotation that barred Kipchoge from being recorded as the marathon world record holder.
