Three-time Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon announced on Wednesday that she will attempt to break her mile world record and become the first woman to run under four minutes.
Kipyegon revealed her plans on social media and will participate in a Nike-backed exhibition on June 26 in Paris where she hopes to take at least 7.65 seconds off her current 2023 mark (4:07.64), the current world record.
“I’m a three-time Olympic champion. I’ve achieved World Championship titles. I thought, What else? Why not dream outside the box?” Kipyegon said in a statement. “And I told myself, ‘If you believe in yourself, and your team believes in you, you can do it.’”
The event, Breaking4, will be staged at Stade Charléty, which can accommodate 20,000 people and is a multi-purpose stadium mainly for soccer along with track and field.
Kipyegon is the only woman to date that has come close to running below four minutes and ten seconds in the mile — and succeeded, and also holds the women’s 1,500m record.
Sifan Hassan ran 4:12.33 in 2019 in Monaco and holds the second fastest time, while Svetlana Masterkova is third with 4:12.56, from 1996 in Zurich.
“I want this attempt to say to women, ‘You can dream and make your dreams valid,’” she says. “This is the way to go as women, to push boundaries and dream big.”
According to a statement from Nike, Kipyegon will make just one attempt at the mile on June 26.
Kipyegon’s showcase will likely be modeled after Eliud Kipchoge’s two attempts at running under two hours at marathon distance.
In 2017, Kipchoge was chosen along with Zersenay Tadese and Lelisa Desisa to race on the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza race track in Italy. Kipchoge finished first in 2:00:25 — close to the sub-two hour mark, while Tadese was second in 2:06:51 and Desisa third in 2:14:10.
But in 2019, Kipchoge attempted the feat again in the Ineos 1:59 Challenge on the streets of Vienna, Austria featuring pacers, laser guides and other custom features that resulted in a 1:59:40.2 finish. The event drew widespread attention but was not ratified as a world record since it was not an open competition and utilized hydration by bicycle, among other adjustments that were not race legal.
Still, it was proof that a human could run under two hours at the distance and Kipchoge’s reputation soared as a result.
Kipyegon can expect similar attention to detail to give her the best opportunity to get under the four-minute barrier, once seen decades ago as a major conquest in running until Roger Bannister clocked a 3:59.4 in 1954 in England.
John Landy would break Bannister’s mark the following month in Finland with a 3:58.0 time and the barrier was no longer out of reach. In the years to follow male runners would routinely run below four minutes and Hicham El Guerrouj’s 3:43.13 performance in 1999 in Italy is the current record on any surface.
“Faith is a once-in-a-generation talent, and her audacious goal is exactly what Nike stands for,” Nike chief executive Elliott Hill said in a statement. “Breaking4 is the kind of bold dream we will do everything in our power to make real — helping both elite and everyday athletes to believe anything is possible. No other brand can offer the level of expertise, innovation and support that our Nike teams can. Alongside Faith, our innovators are breaking barriers by combining cutting-edge sport science with revolutionary footwear and apparel innovation to help her achieve a truly historic goal.”
Kipyegon felt that the best chance for her to break the mark was June, based on her training schedule.
And the collaboration also ensures that each detail in fitness benchmarks, shoes, clothing and science will all be factors to give Kipyegon a legitimate shot at either lowering her record further or shattering four minutes.
She will need to run each of the four laps two seconds faster to guarantee that the showcase is a success.
“Advanced innovation at Nike is driven by a deep commitment to partnering with athletes like Faith, turning dreams into dares and dares into destiny,” John Hoke, Nike Chief Innovation Officer said in a statement. “This courageous attempt at breaking a monumental boundary embodies the alchemy of art, science and athlete, resetting ambitions and amplifying impact. Together with athletes, we approach problems systemically, creatively and parametrically — no problem too large, no detail too small. As always, we stand in awe of helping athletes achieve greatness.”
