Can a woman run a 4-minute mile? Faith Kipyegon is about to try.

Jesse Campigotto · CBC Sports

· Posted: Jun 25, 2025 4:44 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

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Tomorrow successful Paris, Kenyan way prima Faith Kipyegon volition effort to go the archetypal pistillate to tally a mile successful nether 4 minutes.

It's a daunting challenge. Though the mile has mislaid overmuch of its lustre since its mid-20th-century heyday and is not portion of the Olympics oregon the satellite championships, immoderate inactive see it the eventual trial of a runner. It demands a peculiar blend of speed, strength, fitness, endurance, quality and, due to the fact that it's truthful painful, earthy courage. And, to bash it successful 4 minutes, Kipyegon won't person to simply interruption the women's satellite record — she'll person to obliterate it.

In the 71 years since English aesculapian pupil Roger Bannister ran the archetypal sub-four-minute mile connected a cinder way astatine Oxford University, the men's grounds has been lowered to 3:43.13 (by Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj successful 1999). But the women's record, acceptable by Kipyegon herself successful 2023 successful Monaco, is 4:07.64.

A mile is 1,609 metres — a small implicit 4 afloat laps of the 400-metre track. So, for Kipyegon to spell sub-4, she'll person to trim her world-record gait by astir 2 seconds per lap. That whitethorn not dependable similar much, but astatine a four-minute-mile gait 2 seconds equals astir 13.4 metres. So, the 31-year-old ma volition person to bushed the shade of her 2023 world-record aforesaid by astir 54 metres.

If anyone tin bash it, though, it's Kipyegon. She's won 3 satellite titles and 3 consecutive Olympic golden medals successful the 1,500m — the closest happening to a mile offered astatine the majors. She's besides the reigning satellite champion successful the 5,000m and took metallic successful that region astatine the Paris Olympics past year. When Kipyegon broke the women's mile satellite grounds successful 2023, she lopped astir 5 seconds disconnected Sifan Hassan's modular from 4 years earlier. Before that, it took much than 3 decades to little the grounds by that much.

WATCH | Why Faith Kipyegon could beryllium the 1st pistillate to tally a sub-4-minute mile:

Kipyegon volition besides person plentifulness of assistance connected Thursday. Her effort to interruption the four-minute obstruction is sponsored by Nike, which has branded the task Breaking4 — a riff connected the Breaking2 run it devised for Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge (and 2 different athletes) to go the archetypal idiosyncratic to tally a sub-two-hour marathon successful 2017. That highly choreographed clip proceedings connected a Formula One contention way successful Italy was unsuccessful (by conscionable 25 seconds), but Kipchoge ran a 1:59:40 successful a akin unsanctioned situation 2 years aboriginal successful Austria.

The nonstop pacing strategy hasn't been released, but Kipyegon is expected to beryllium joined by a rotating formed of pacers (possibly a premix of women and men) who tally some successful beforehand of and down her successful a enactment designed to minimize upwind absorption and optimize drafting. They'll beryllium guided by the cutting-edge Wavelight system, which uses LED lights connected the wrong obstruction of the way to amusement the desired pace.

Nike is equipping Kipyegon with a bespoke brace of way spikes that diagnostic a full-length carbon-fibre sheet (de rigueur these days) and measurement conscionable 3 ounces per footwear (25 per cent lighter than the ones she usually uses). She'll besides beryllium wearing a custom-made shoulder-to-knee velocity suit on with limb and limb sleeves and adjacent a peculiar sports bra. The way was cautiously chosen arsenic well. Paris' Stade Sébastien Charléty is wherever Kipyegon broke her ain 1,500m satellite grounds past year.

Kipyegon's tally astatine the four-minute mile volition beryllium shown unrecorded Thursday astatine 1:15 p.m. ET on Nike's YouTube channel and Amazon Prime Video, which besides has a two-part documentary bid connected the Breaking4 project.