Five years ago today, in a park in Vienna, Eliud Kipchoge ran the most significant marathon ever.
The clock stopped at 1:59:40. Kipchoge was already a legend. He had won 10 consecutive marathons between 2014 and 2019, including Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
This, though, was something else. A sub-two-hour marathon was the sport’s Holy Grail. File it next to Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile in 1954.
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The course design (start and finish location, and elevation changes) were perfectly legitimate but Kipchoge’s time wasn’t ratifiable, under World Athletics rulings, to be a world record — because of hydration delivered by bicycle, a rotating group of 42 pacemakers and a car
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