Three-time Olympic gold medalist Faith Kipyegon, the world-record holder for the women’s mile, announced Wednesday that she will attempt to become the first woman to break the four-minute mile.
“I’m a three-time Olympic champion. I’ve achieved world championship titles. I thought: What else? Why not dream outside the box?” Kipyegon said in a statement.
Kipyegon will try to run a sub-four-minute mile June 26 at Stade Charléty in Paris, the culmination of a yearlong Nike project dubbed “Breaking 4.” Nike believes Stade Charléty is the optimal location for her attempt because of its rubber track and because Kipyegon has run her fastest 1,500- and 5,000-meter times there. The precise time will be based on weather conditions.
Kipyegon, 31, set the world record in the women’s mile of 4:07.64 at the Monaco Diamond League race in July 2023, shaving nearly five seconds off the previous record, which stood for four years. The Kenyan runner won the past three Olympic gold medals and holds the world record in the 1,500 meters and previously held the world record in the 5,000 meters.
Dropping nearly 8 seconds from her current world record, set only two years ago, is a mammoth goal. It has taken women more than 30 years to shave the same amount of time off the world record.
“In talking with Faith, we saw instantly her courage in taking on this challenge. It’s a big goal to shave 8 seconds off the mile, but she feels ready,” Seema Simmons, Nike’s vice president of global women’s running, told ESPN. “She’s challenging decades of incremental progress in a very short span of time.”
In 2017, Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon in 2:00:25 for a similar Nike project called “Breaking 2,” which aimed at breaking the two-hour marathon barrier. A second attempt at the barrier in 2019 saw him run 1:59:40.2 for the Ineos 1:59 Challenge. Neither run was recognized as a world record because the conditions of the race, including the use of a rotating cast of pace-setters to shield Kipchoge from the wind, broke with the sport’s official rules.
Because Kipyegon’s attempt in June also will not meet her sport’s official standards, her time will not be recognized if she eclipses her world record.
But that’s not the only point of the project.
“Faith’s goal is not just about her breaking a four-minute mile, and that’s what’s special,” Amy Jones Vaterlaus, vice president at the Nike Sport Research Lab, told ESPN. “It is grounded in her legacy around confidence and ambition for women and girls. She says she wants them to see they can dream their dream.”
