Nike on Wednesday announced its latest “moonshot”: to help Faith Kipyegon become the first woman to run a mile in under 4 minutes.
It’s been more than 70 years since Roger Bannister became the first man to break the 4-minute barrier. In 2023, Kipyegon lowered the women’s world record to 4:07.
On June 26, she will try to break the 4-minute barrier at the Stade Charléty in Paris, the city where she won the most recent of her three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 1,500-meters. Kipyegon, 31, from Kenya, also holds the world record at that distance.
On a call with journalists last week, Nike executives said they’re working with Kipyegon, a 16-year Nike endorser, on every aspect of her preparation, including studying aerodynamics, weather patterns, pacing strategy, track surfaces and, of course, making her custom footwear and apparel. The company is branding the attempt Breaking4.
“We believe that Faith is in the best position to do this because of her courage, determination and her track record,” said Seema Simmons, a Nike vice president who oversees women’s running.
It’s an audacious goal. It’s taken more than 30 years to shave 8 seconds off the women’s world record in the mile.
“If we followed historical performance trends, it suggests it would take a woman 10 to 30 years to break a 4-minute mile,” said Amy Jones Vaterlus, a Nike vice president who oversees the company’s research lab. “But we realized this, with focus and innovation, we can significantly shorten that time.”
The attempt could boost CEO Elliott Hill’s effort to refocus the company around sports and make up lost ground with everyday runners, many of whom shifted to competitors’ products in recent years as Nike pushed retro sneakers.
Wall Street analysts have said Nike’s accelerated efforts to get new models of running shoes on store shelves are starting to yield results, with the Vomero 18, Pegasus Premium and Zoom Fly 6 selling well, although still in small quantities.
“(These) data points are promising and consistent with Nike’s recent commentary around the category,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Simeon Siegel wrote to investors last month.
Kipyegon, who will be running in custom Nike shoes when she steps on the Stade Charléty track, will need to run each lap 2 seconds faster than her record pace to crack 4 minutes.
“I’m a three-time Olympic champion. I’ve achieved World Championship titles. I thought, What else? Why not dream outside the box?” Kipyegon said in a press release. “And I told myself, ‘If you believe in yourself, and your team believes in you, you can do it.’”
A handful of scientific researchers agree.
In a paper published this year in the journal Royal Society Open Science, four academics wrote Kipyegon could break the 4-minute barrier if she ran between pacesetters to reduce her wind resistance. But even then, they concluded, it would be close, predicting she’d break the barrier by less than a second.
In 2017, Nike organized Breaking2, an effort by Eliud Kipchoge, another Nike endorser, to break the 2-hour barrier in the marathon. The effort came up 25 seconds short, but Kipchoge broke the barrier two years later. (It didn’t count as a world record because he used pacesetters.)
On the business side, in 2016, Nike announced a “moonshot” environmental goal of doubling its business and halving its environmental impact, although it didn’t commit to a deadline. Since 2015, though, the company’s carbon emissions have grown slightly and its revenue has increased roughly 60%.
While some might consider Breaking4 a marketing stunt, the one-mile distance is a popular fitness benchmark. Kipyegon and Nike hope it will inspire other runners.
“I want this attempt to say to women, ‘You can dream and make your dreams valid,’” Kipyegon said in the release. “This is the way to go as women, to push boundaries and dream big.”
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– Matthew Kish covers business, including the sportswear and banking industries. Reach him at 503-221-4386, mkish@oregonian.com or @matthewkish.
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