It sits alongside Roger Bannister’s 4 minute mile and the first sub-10 second 100m time recorded by Jim Hines with a time of 9.95 seconds. The magnitude of this most recent record is huge. The technology used at an elite level also trickles down to the commercial consumer level improving lives for everyone. It would be great to see a ‘space race’ between companies like these to achieve new records. Hopefully, companies like Adidas are able to catch up with Nike and start to compete with them. This makes the races and season more interesting with teams like Mercedes being faster in the corners and teams like Ferrari being faster on the straights. It allows creativity and competition between teams each pushing each other’s limits. Each of those employees is able to innovate and push technology further than ever – building on the idea of marginal gains. Something they have just achieved for the sixth time on the trot, by winning their 6th Constructor’s title in a row after last weekend in Japan. In 2018, the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team had around 950 employees working on the same goal of achieving the best car. Huge teams are behind every elite athlete. Secondly, innovation in technology is a huge part of sport. Kipchoge said this himself: ‘I expect more people all over the world to run under two hours after today.’. Firstly as an unofficial record, the attempt is there to show that a sub-2-hour marathon is possible allowing other athletes to push to achieve and exceed this. Photo: Joe Toth for The INEOS 1:59 Challengeįor me, I have no problem with the development. The INEOS 1:59 Challenge, Vienna, Austria. Eliud Kipchoge (white vest) and his pacemaking team run through Vienna. Some called the shoes a form of ‘Technical Doping’ giving athletes an unfair advantage due to the three individual carbon fibre plates and four individual cushioning pods to name just a few innovations each providing propulsion and economy to the runner’s stride. The Next% goes even further than this and Kipchoges mystery shoe, rumoured to be called alphaFLY, goes even further still. The initial Vaporfly 4% were named due to the 4% improvement in running economy that they created on average. Whilst Kosgei seemed to be wearing the commercially available Next% shoes (in accordance with IAAF rules), Kipchoge was wearing what Nike has called ‘A future version of Nike’s Next% marathon shoe’. Both Kipchoge and Kosgei were wearing models of Nike’s latest developments. The use of pacemakers, drafting and most notably: the shoes. Eliud Kipchogeįollowing the record last weekend, a few things were thrown into controversy. You live simple, you train hard and live an honest life. So, I believe in calm, simple, low-profile life. A quiet man with a humble lifestyle and background, coupled with almost everything he says being a motivational quote makes him the ideal candidate for such a feat. Almost uniquely, he is an athlete that is impossible not to like. Kipchoge is relentless and with a goal in his sight he will never gave up. However, this made the most recent attempt even more incredible. It was incredible how much he actually knocked off the previous record, yet was only 1 second off the pace-per-mile to breaking 2 hours. I distinctly remember two years ago watching the Breaking2 attempt and being both amazed and upset about how close Kipchoge was to breaking 2 hours. And most recently, a weekend to remember in the marathon…Brigid Kosgei breaking the women’s record, taking a staggering 81 seconds off a 16 year record, and Eliud Kipchoge breaking the 2-hour marathon barrier. Japan’s unexpected dominance in the pool stages of their home World Cup. Huge comebacks in the Champions League knockout stages. The heroics of Ben Stokes in both the World Cup and Headingley Test. 2019, so far, has been an incredible year of sport.
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