LONDON :All eyes will be on the Paris sky on Thursday in the hope that conditions are considered optimum for Kenya’s triple Olympic and world 1,500 metres champion Faith Kipyegon to make her attempt on the first women’s unofficial sub-four minute mile.
In a Nike “Breaking4” project following the success of Eliud Kipchoge’s unofficial sub-two hour marathon, his 31-year-old compatriot will attempt the feat in the city’s Stade Charlety, where she set her 1,500 and 5,000 metres world records.
If the weather is as favourable as forecast, Kipyegon will run in a host of innovative apparel and the inevitable improved 85-gram super-spikes that Nike say will give her the edge.
But the biggest impact is likely to come from her pacers and their computer-designed positions that should maximise the essential drafting benefit.
Kipchoge was shielded by an arrow formation of pacers, who dipped in and out of the race to ensure they were fresh enough to hold the necessary speed.
Kipyegon will need every ounce of help she can get to find the more than seven seconds she needs to beat her own 2023 record of 4:07.64, which took almost five seconds off Sifan Hassan’s 2019 mark in the rarely-run distance.
To break the four-minute barrier, Kipyegon will need to run each of her four and a bit laps an average of nearly two seconds faster than her previous best and she hopes her special relationship with Stade Charlety will help.
“I absolutely think there’s special energy at this track,” she said. “I have beautiful memories of Paris, breaking the 5,000 world record, breaking the 1,500 world record there. And now we are going for this special one, and I think the track will bring good results.”
Kipyegon won the Olympic 1,500m title at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Games and the world title in 2017, 2022 and 2023, when she also took 5,000m gold. The Kenyan will hope to add to her haul at September’s world championships in Tokyo.
As well as the mile record, she holds the 1,500m world mark of 3:49.04 – although her 5,000 record was broken by Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay – and barely seemed to break stride despite 21 months away from the track after having a baby in 2018.
Britain’s Roger Bannister was the first man to go under four minutes in May 1954, with compatriot Diane Leather the first woman to break five minutes later the same month. The current men’s record is the 3:43.13 set by Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999.
