On Thursday 26 June, in Paris, Faith Kipyegon will try to make history on the track.
In an Nike-supported event similar to those in which Kipchoge attempted to break the 2-hour barrier for the marathon, Kipyegon will try to become the first woman in history to run a sub-4-minute mile. The modified time trial will take place at the Stade Charléty in Paris, which is the same track where she broke both the 1500m and 5000m world records.
The 31-year-old Kenyan already owns three Olympic gold medals in the 1500m and the world record in the mile, having clocked a 4:07.64 mile two years ago in Monaco to obliterate the previous record by more than four and a half seconds. Now, though, she’ll attempt the quest of dropping nearly eight more seconds to break the four-minute barrier.
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Officially known as ‘Breaking4: Faith Kipyegon vs. the 4-Minute Mile’, it’s a partnership project with Nike that has been in the works since 2023 and which features an array of athletic performance developments.
A mile is 1609m, which is slightly more than four full laps around a 400m track. Kipyegon will have to run approximately two seconds faster per lap to break the four-minute mark.
The event is considered an exhibition, so if she runs faster than the current world record, it won’t be eligible for record consideration. However, Kenya’s Kipyegon says that one of her main goals is to show the world what’s possible and to inspire women and girls around the world.
‘I’m a three-time Olympic champion,’ says Kipyegon, who is mother to Alyn, her seven-year-old daughter. ‘I’ve achieved World Championships titles. I thought, what else? Why not dream outside the box? If you believe in yourself and your team believes in you, you can do it.’
How to watch Breaking4
The event will be streamed live on both Prime Video and Nike’s YouTube channel at 6:15pm BST on Thursday 26 June, as well as on Nike’s Instagram, TikTok and Douyin accounts. The first of a two-part docuseries about Kipyegon’s training and life in Kenya also premiered on Friday 20 June on Prime Video, while the second part will drop in July after the time trial.
Runner’s World will also be at the event, so make sure that you follow our Instagram page for more updates from the event.
When Kipchoge attempted to break the 2-hour marathon barrier in 2017 and 2019, successfully running 1:59:40 in the latter event in the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna, Nike supported him with logistics, innovative gear and apparel, wind-deflecting devices and rotating pacers.
Kipyegon is receiving similar technical support from Nike in her audacious attempt. She’ll wear a custom pair of featherweight Victory Elite FK spikes, an innovative, first-of-its-kind speed suit and a sports bra made of a revolutionary 3D-printed performance material.
The bespoke spikes include a ZoomX midsole, a full-length carbon-fibre plate, a Zoom Air unit in the forefoot and an airy, net-like mesh upper. Each shoe weighs just 85g, making it 25% lighter than the Victory 2 that she has worn for several years.
‘If she crosses the line in under four minutes, it won’t just be a new world record,’ said Carrie Dimoff, Nike’s Footwear Lead on the Breaking4 team. ‘It’ll be a new understanding of what’s possible for women in sport.’
Kipchoge’s historic time in Vienna wasn’t eligible to be a world record, but it showed what was possible. He later lowered his own official world record to 2:01:09 in September 2022 at the Berlin Marathon. That mark was broken again in October 2023, when the late Kelvin Kiptum lowered the mark to 2:00:35 at the Chicago Marathon.
While Kipchoge had to drop his marathon time by 2.4% to break the two-hour barrier, Kipyegon must improve by 3.1% to achieve the women’s first sub-4-minute mile. She is the only woman to have broken 4:08 in the distance and the only woman who has run faster than the previous world record of 4:12.33, which was set by Dutch athlete Sifan Hassan in 2019.
Before that, Russia’s Svetlana Masterkova secured the mile world record of 4:12.56 in the summer of 1996. In all, only six women have ever broken 4:15.
Last summer, at the Stade Charléty in Paris, Kipyegon broke her own world record in the 1500m when she ran 3:49.04. That time approximately translates to a mile time of 4:06.
Kipyegon owns a personal best of 1:57.68 in the 800m, which is the rough equivalent of half a mile. In her only race so far in 2025, she won a 1000m race in China in 2:29.21, which was just 0.23 of a second off the world record. That’s the exact pace that she’ll need to run for a full mile – an additional 609m, or lap and a half, around the track.
‘For more than 50 years, Nike has made athletes’ dreams real by helping them to redefine barriers and achieve the impossible,’ says Tanya Hvizdak, Vice President, Global Sports Marketing at Nike. ‘Faith epitomises everything that we love about sport and the belief that we have in our athletes. Her moonshot continues our legacy of supporting bold, pioneering pursuits that move the world forward through the power of sport.’
