Eliud Kipchoge falls 25 seconds short of first sub-two hour marathon but posts unofficial world record

Getty Images
Tom Dutton6 May 2017

Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge has failed in his bid to complete the first sub-two hour marathon by an agonising 25 seconds in Italy.

The 32-year-old Kenyan - along with fellow elite African athletes, Lelisa Desisa and Zersenay Tadese - was hoping to break the barrier exactly 63 years after Roger Bannister became the first person to run a four-minute mile.

The trio were running as part of the Breaking2 project from sportswear giant Nike at the Monza F1 track in Milan and Kipchoge broke away from the other two runners with a chance of making history but - despite his determination throughout - he crossed the line after a gruelling 26.2 miles in two hours and 24 seconds.

Kipchoge can take inspiration from the fact that he took over two-and-a-half minutes off compatriot Dennis Kimetto's world record of 2hrs 02mins 57secs, set at the 2014 Berlin Marathon, in Saturday's unofficial world record attempt.

Three-time Boston Marathon winner Desisa, from Ethiopia, and Eritrean half-marathon world-record holder Tadese dropped off the pace to leave Kipchoge crossing the line alone at the end of the 17-and-a-half trips around the 1.5-mile loop circuit.

Kipchoge admits he was just focused on breaking the two-hour barrier as the last lap approached but vowed to come back.

He told Nike's #Breaking2 live Twitter feed: "My mind fully was focused on the two hours but in the last seconds I was a bit behind.

"This journey has been good. It's been hard. It's been a long journey...it's taken seven good months of preparation.

"I'm happy to have done it.

"With the race I felt good, I'm a happy man to run a marathon in two hours. Now it is just 25 seconds (I need to lose).

"I believe in good preparation and planning and if I stick to that the 25 seconds will come."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT