First sub-2 hour marathon (in Vienna).

Cynics will note:

"This was an operation afforded military levels of planning and an even loftier budget. Vienna had been preferred to London because of benign conditions. Kipchoge ran every kilometre between a range of 2:48 and 2:52. Teams of seven pacemakers – in a phalanx formation, 2-1-2-2 - not only kept Kipchoge on the right side of the clock but protected him from what little breeze existed.

"That was controversial. So, too, the green lasers projected on to the road as a further safeguard against losing ground. This is not sport as we knew it. The hills couldn’t be alive because the hills didn’t exist; Kipchoge’s route was entirely flat and 90% straight."

But it's still an enormous accomplishment.




[Post edited by PhotoHokieNC at 10/12/2019 11:01AM]