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Can a Woman Run a Four-Minute Mile?

Faith Kipyegon, the world-record holder, will attempt to break the barrier this week. She’ll be getting plenty of help.

Key Points

More than 70 years ago, Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. And, as runners continued to obsess over the mark, several thousand more followed in his wake.

But all of them had one thing in common: They were men.

Now, for the first time, a woman is taking aim at a 4-minute mile. Faith Kipyegon, a three-time Olympic champion from Kenya, will make her attempt at the previously unimaginable target on Thursday in a closed-course event at the Stade Charléty in Paris.

“I think it will cement my legacy and also give hope to other women that everything is possible,” Kipyegon said.

The question is exactly how possible. Nike, her sponsor and the event’s organizer, is calling this a moonshot, and with good reason. To go under 4 minutes, the 31-year-old Kipyegon needs to slash nearly eight seconds off her current world record of 4:07.64.

Nike has supplied her with special spikes and a sleek, custom racing suit. But the most crucial element probably won’t be anything she’s wearing. The biggest difference-maker will likely be the pacesetters running with Kipyegon to help maintain the frenetic rhythm and shield her from wind. A spokesperson said Nike had tested different strategies and that the final formation would be revealed on Thursday.

Kipyegon has already written her name into the history books repeatedly by setting world records in the 1,500 and 5,000 meter races. But the mile remains the distance that stays in the minds of even casual weekend runners.

World Athletics President Seb Coe, who set the mile world record three times in the 1970s and 1980s, pointed out that more people have reached the summit of Mount Everest (an estimated 7,000) than achieved a 4-minute mile (about 2,100, according to Track & Field News editor Sieg Lindstrom).

“The mile still has a universal cachet,” Coe said.

Nike has plenty of experience with stunts like this one. Eight years ago, it staged a race in Italy for Kenyan star Eliud Kipchoge to try to run a marathon in under two hours.

The company equipped him with state-of-the-art shoes and a phalanx of pace-setting runners tagging in and out to escort him on his way. Kipchoge missed the mark by 25 seconds at the time. But in a subsequent staged attempt two years later, he hit the historic mark on a closed course in Vienna.

Due to the highly controlled conditions, Kipchoge’s effort wasn’t eligible for world-record ratification—no one has run a marathon in under 2 hours in competition. The same will be true of Kipyegon’s attempt. Track and field governing body World Athletics requires that world records be set in live competition.

Still, Kipyegon is throwing herself into uncharted territory for women. Trimming 7.65 seconds over the course of a mile is a monumental leap that will require every possible efficiency.

Aerodynamic drafting with the help of pacesetters could contribute to a saving of 3 to 4 seconds at 4-minute-mile pace, according to a recent academic paper written in part by two Nike-funded researchers. When Bannister broke the 4-minute barrier, he drafted closely behind two different pacers for more than 80% of the run.

Another study, published in February independently of Nike, said its calculations “suggest that Kipyegon could run ~3:59.37 with drafting provided by one pacer in front and one in back who change out with two other pacers at 800 [meters].”

Wouter Hoogkamer, one of the authors of the February study, said, “We didn’t think they were going to try it this soon. But I guess if anybody’s going to do it, it’s going to be Faith Kipyegon.”

Beyond the pacers, Kipyegon—who once won a junior title running barefoot—will also rely on a knee-length bodysuit studded with raindrop-sized nubs that Nike calls “aeronodes,” which are designed to “split the air in front of Faith and create smaller eddies behind her to reduce drag.” The kit includes arm and leg sleeves and a headband.

Her custom track shoes, meanwhile, feature six spikes instead of the regular five and more cushion under the forefoot. The general category of super spikes, developed with high-tech foams and carbon-fiber plates, has driven a surge in 4-minute miles among men.

Kipyegon’s attempt comes as Nike seeks to rejuvenate its brand and capitalize on the rising profile of women’s sports. But not everyone necessarily sees the sporting merit.

Kara Goucher, a retired U.S. Olympian and former Nike athlete who has been critical of the brand, called Kipyegon a “true prodigy,” but thought that fixating on 4 minutes was misguided.

“We are focused on a woman breaking a men’s barrier instead of what she has already done,” Goucher wrote in an email. “She has run 4:07 in the mile. That is wayyy faster than what was ever believed that a woman could run.”

Eurostar rail services delayed and cancelled after cable theft

Wednesday’s incident adds to delays caused after two people were struck by trains the previous day

Eurostar rail services were experiencing a second successive day of severe delays and cancellations on Wednesday after the theft of a cable near Lille forced the diversion of trains to slower routes.

The issues followed significant hold-ups after two people were struck by trains on the same stretch of track on Tuesday. The operator said on its website that some trains between London and Paris could be as much as 90 minutes late, while three services in each direction were cancelled.

The cable theft incident on Wednesday led to long queues at the Eurostar terminal at Paris’s Gare du Nord as passengers held up by the previous day’s problems arrived to find the new set of delays.

The operator was also showing some services between London and Brussels and Amsterdam as suffering severe delays, and was offering passengers the chance to rebook for another day or receive a refund.

Eurostar, controlled by French national train operator SNCF, said: “This morning, services have been . . . affected by an incident of cable theft . . . near Lille. Trains are being rerouted via diversionary routes, which is leading to extended journey times.”

It gave no immediate estimate for how quickly the cable could be replaced and the line returned to normal operations.

Rail infrastructure owners have in recent years suffered frequent problems because of theft of cables by criminals seeking to profit from high prices for scrap copper. Most modern signalling cables, however, are fibre optic and have no scrap value.

For TV network operators, the prognosis looks glum

When it comes to American exceptionalism, it’s hard to beat prescription drug TV ads. Viewers in the US are bombarded with appeals from makers of medications treating everything from arthritis to psoriasis — and more recently weight loss. The commercials — which inevitably feature scenes of smiling people living life to the full while a narrator rattles off a list of possible side-effects — are ubiquitous and irksome. Outside of the US, only New Zealand allows such things.

Change may be coming. The White House is reportedly considering measures to limit pharma companies’ ability to conduct so-called direct-to-consumer advertising. Senators introduced a bill this month that would ban the practice altogether, arguing drug ads drive up healthcare costs by steering patients towards more expensive drugs when equally effective cheaper generics are available.

For a hint of how much drugmakers could lose from this move, look at how much they spend. The pharmaceutical industry deployed over $5bn on national TV ads last year, according to ad measurement firm iSpot. AbbVie, the biggest spender, stumped up $635mn on traditional TV ads to promote Skyrizi and Rinvoq. US sales of the two blockbuster autoimmune drugs generated about a quarter of the company’s revenue last year. Eli Lilly is another major ad buyer. It spent over half a billion dollars last year on TV ads for its diabetes and weight loss treatments. 

There are two risks for these companies. One is that patients and physicians opt for alternative drugs. There are ways to mitigate that, though, such as marketing to the doctors themselves. A bigger concern might be that patients, unmolested by drug ads promising a happier, healthier life, may not take their complaints to a doctor in the first place. Again, there’s a workaround: “disease awareness” campaigns, in which drugmakers coax viewers into treatment without naming their products. Or in the absence of a blanket ban, they could just take their drug ads to other channels, such as social media.

For TV network operators, the prognosis looks glum. Revenue generated from prescription drug commercials has been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise soft advertising market. Spending on pharmaceutical advertising is on the up even as audiences and advertising revenue for non-streamed TV have declined. The pharma industry now accounts for more than 13 per cent of all national TV ad spending, up from less than 10 per cent just three years ago, according to iSpot.

The Big Four networks — NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox — collectively took in nearly $2.7bn in drug ad revenues last year. That may not be a lot compared with the $258bn the networks’ respective parent companies generated. But traditional TV has been losing its lustre for years. Banning drug ads would leave these operators with an unpleasant case of cold turkey.

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