This Sunday marked six years of Breaking2, that strange feat mounted by a sponsor of Eliud Kipchoge so that the Philosopher became the first man in history to break under two hours in a marathon with some cheats, and John Korir and Jacob Kiplimo seemed to fearlessly launch themselves into that barrier in the Chicago Marathon. He endured running at world record pace for 30 kilometers and practically where Kelvin Kiptum accelerated to set the record in 2023 (2h 35s), his posthumous work before dying months later in a car accident, the Ugandan declined until he crossed the finish line in 2h 2m 23s. He is already seventh of all time and has only made two forays into this distance. The Ethiopian Hawi Feysa took the victory in women with a mark (2h 14m 56s) that places her fifth in history. He crossed the Park Grant finish line twelfth.
and Kiplimo, the half marathon world record holder in a somewhat irregular race in Barcelona, with a car with the stopwatch acting as a screen in front of the Ugandan – the record has not been ratified eight months later -, they took off, leaving kilometer 5 behind before 14 minutes. Korir, somewhat reckless – he would later retire – accelerated his pace halfway through the race (14m 6s from kilometer 20 to 25), when the two were already running with no hares ahead. Only Kiplimo, who is emerging as the main candidate to become the first runner of all time to go down at the end of the two hours, survived.
His record in the half marathon (56m 42s, the only one that has gone under 57 minutes) and this performance in the second marathon of his life, mark the Ugandan as the chosen one, the athlete that every race in the world wants, the man who will always be asked about Kiptum’s time. He tried it in Chicago, one of those marathons that are considered the offspring of Frank Shorter, the American who unleashed a fever for the 42.195km after winning Olympic gold at the 72nd Munich Games. The event was born in 1977, with 4,200 runners who paid pocket change, five dollars, for registration, and now, 46 years later, it has become the new distance paradise: there the male and female records have been made
