Breaking2


Breaking2 was a project by Nike to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon. Nike announced the project in November 2016 and organized a team of three elite runners who trained for a private race. The event was held on the Formula One Autodromo Nazionale Monza race track in Italy on May 6, 2017.
Eliud Kipchoge won the race with a time of 2:00:25. While the world record at the time was 2:02:57, this run was not recognized as a new record, because Kipchoge and the other two elite athletes ran with a roster of interchangeable pacemakers.

Team members

Nike chose three runners to make the attempt:
NameNationalityBirth dateAgePrevious best marathon
Lelisa Desisa14 January 1990272:04:45
Eliud Kipchoge5 November 1984322:03:05
Zersenay Tadese8 February 1982352:10:41

At the time, Kipchoge was the defending Olympic champion, having won the marathon at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and Zersenay was the half marathon WR holder.
Nike also brought in 30 of the world's best runners to serve as pacers for the race, including Andrew Bumbalough, Sam Chelanga, Chris Derrick, Bernard Lagat, and Lopez Lomong.

Preparations

Nike developed a new running shoe called the "Vapor Fly Elite" for the attempt. The Monza automobile racetrack was chosen for a combination of its low altitude, calm weather conditions, and short lap length. In addition to the pacemaker vehicle, runners acting as pacemakers were positioned to shield the key athletes in an attempt to reduce wind resistance.

Race

The race began at 5:45 am on Saturday, May 6, 2017, with a temperature of 12°C or 54°F and some light rain.
To break the two-hour barrier, a pace of 2:50 min/km was required. In order to achieve this, the racers followed behind a team of six pacers in a triangle formation who were themselves following a pace vehicle displaying a large clock of the race time and projecting green lasers onto the ground to indicate where the lead pacer should be at all times. The pacers only ran two laps at a time and had 30 minute breaks in between shifts. Groups of pacers would cycle on and off in threes.
The runners started off on pace, but Desisa fell off the pace about 16km in, and Tadese followed around 20km. Kipchoge remained on pace through 25km and was only one second off pace at 30km. Kipchoge finished the race in 2:00:25 and said he had given 100 percent effort.

Results

At the time of the race, the world record of the marathon was 2:02:57. Even though Kipchoge beat this time by more than two minutes, his result does not count as an official record by IAAF standards because of several factors, including the use of pacers who entered the race midway.

Aftermath

Documentary

Shortly after the race, Nike announced that they had partnered with National Geographic to produce a feature-length documentary, which was to be released at the end of the summer. The documentary was published on National Geographic's YouTube channel on September 21, 2017.

Subsequent successful attempt

In 2019, Kipchoge teamed up with Ineos to take on the, another attempt to break the two-hour mark. The attempt was ultimately successful as Kipchoge finished with a time of 1:59:40.2, but the time did not count as a world record because of the specific setup of the event which did not conform to the IAAF's requirements.