FILE PHOTO: Athletics – Eliud Kipchoge reveals plans to break two hour marathon record – Iffley Road Sports Centre, Oxford, Britain May 6, 2019 – Picture taken April 30, 2019. Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge speaks to the media REUTERS/Andrew Boyers
June 27, 2019
(Reuters) – Kenyan world record holder Eliud Kipchoge’s second attempt to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon will take place in Vienna on Oct. 12 this year, event organizers INEOS said on Thursday.
The 2016 Olympics marathon gold medalist lowered the legal world record by an astonishing 78 seconds when posting 2:01.39 in Berlin last September and ran the second-fastest time in history when winning the London marathon in 2:02.37 in April. He ran 2:00.25 in his previous non-world record attempt in Italy in 2017 – the Breaking2 project.
The latest attempt to break the two-hour mark, dubbed the ‘INEOS 1:59 Challenge’ is a project backed by Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire owner of chemical firm INEOS.
A number of venues were considered by INEOS who finally settled on the Austrian city where Kipchoge will run a multi-lap marathon that centers on a 4.3km straight stretch of run inside the Prater Hauptallee.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Mitch Phillips)
