Kipchoge a ‚happy man‘ in Monza

Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge produced the fastest ever time for the marathon distance at the Breaking2 race in Monza, Italy, running 2:00:25* on Saturday (6).

Held on a race track at 5:45am local time, Kipchoge lined up alongside half marathon world record-holder Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea and 2013 world silver medallist Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia to try to become the first men to cover 26.2 miles within two hours.

With a target pace of 14:13 for each 5km segment, the trio passed through the first five kilometres in 14:14 and reached 10km in 28:21. Desisa started to drop off the pace about 50 minutes into the race, leaving Kipchoge and Tadese to reach the half-way point in 59:57.