Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge Runs Marathon in Under Two Hours

Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge broke the long-held two-hour marathon barrier in Vienna Saturday morning by running 26.2 miles in 1:59:40. But the incredible time does not qualify as a world record because the run was not carried out under open marathon conditions and because Kipchoge ran with Olympic long distance runners as pacesetters. Kipchoge holds the current world record at 2:1:39, which he set at the Berlin marathon last year. The Vienna run was sponsored by petrochemical company INEOS which hyped the event as Kipchoge’s chance to break “the last barrier of modern athletics.” Kipchoge is a three-time Olympic medalist who has long sought to break the two-hour barrier. He previously came close to the record, running a marathon distance in 2:00:25 in Monza, Italy, on an automotive race track.