1:59:41 - Eliud Kipchoge proved No Human Is Limited

Eliud Kipchoge proved No Human Is Limited when he became the first human in history to run a sub-two-hour marathon in the city of Vienna, Austria this morning. Kipchoge ran the 42.195KM distance in a remarkable time of 1:59:40:2.

The 34-year-old Kenyan’s landmark achievement began at 8:15AM CEST on the Reichsbrucke Bridge in Vienna in perfect weather conditions of around 9 degrees celcius and wind speeds between 0.5 - 1.5 m/s.

Members of the INEOS 1:59 team including pacemakers who helped Kipchoge achieve the feat said:

Five-time Olympian Bernard Lagat said: "Eliud told the world that if you set your mind to something nothing is impossible. This is a special day today. Looking at the 1:59:40 time I got so emotional. He worked so hard for it and inspired us. It is something special, really special.

The crowd was insane, I’ve never experienced anything like it, they were 100 per cent into it. Eliud proved no human was limited and he did it.”

Pacemaker Lopez Lomong said: "It means the world to me. Eliud said we needed to be able to come to the moon and back and we did today. This was a momentous day. The whole world will be watching with many people putting their shoes on thinking about breaking two hours. 

“INEOS put together a great team of world-class pacemakers and we were able to work together. Today is Eliud’s day but everyone can come out to celebrate this moment. We are all part of history. We all did together as a running community.”  

Team INEOS Team Principal Sir Dave Brailsford said: 

"Eliud is a once in a generation athlete and if anybody deserves to break the two-hour barrier it is him. It was an incredible performance and a privilege to be here.

"This project kicked off earlier this year, we took a good look at it and broke it down. A lot of high performance principles can apply to all sports and we helped with a little background support to the brilliant team around him of Valentijn (Trouw, Eliud’s manager) and Patrick (Sang, Eliud’s coach). 

"It was a great lesson in a very evenly paced run. He was very calm and conservative and the pacemakers took Eliud to the last kilometre for him to bring it home.

"When you work with elite athletes they want to push boundaries. The great thing about the INEOS' role is we brought people together including from the INEOS sailing and cycling teams. INEOS put it all together for this single project and from an INEOS sport perspective it has been fantastic."