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On June 26 in Paris, Faith Kipyegon will attempt to run what was previously thought to be unthinkable. She’ll attempt to become the first woman to break 4 minutes for the mile.
It’s an audacious goal, to be sure, especially given that the 31-year-old Kenyan runner is already the fastest woman in history with the stunning 4:07.64 time she ran two years ago in Monaco. Can she drop more than 7 additional seconds and break 4 minutes? It will be the spectacle of the summer in the world of running and an amazing moment for women’s sports.
Officially known as “Breaking4: Faith Kipyegon vs. the 4-Minute Mile,” the event is an integrated partnership project with Nike that’s been in the works since 2023, and will involve just about every aspect of athletic performance development.
In an Nike-produced event similar to those in which Eliud Kipchoge attempted to break the 2-hour marathon barrier in 2017 and 2019 — successfully ran 1:59:40 in the latter event — Kipyegon will run a modified time trial at the Stade Sébastien Charléty in Paris, the same track where she broke both the 1500-meter and 5,000-meter world records.
The event will be streamed live on both Prime Video and Nike’s YouTube channel at 1 p.m. ET on June 26 (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. Part I will premiere June 20 on Prime Video, while the second part will drop in July after the time trial.
With considerable help from pacers, specialized Nike gear, and a large production team, Kipyegon will take on a task similar to what British runner Roger Bannister accomplished for the first time in 1954 when he became the world’s first person to break the 4-minute mile barrier.
Like Bannister, Kipyegon will have to run approximately four consecutive 60-second laps around a track in one fell swoop with the hope of breaking the finish line in 3:59.99 or faster. Also like Bannister, she’ll be doing it amid the tension that most of the world doesn’t think she can, that somehow it’s not humanly possible.
But this is much bigger than that, a huge moonshot for Kipyegon, women’s running, and women’s sports in general. Plus, Bannister was 25 at the time and had previously run 4:02.0 when he finally broke the barrier.
“Yes, this is a big challenge,” Kipyegon said in a virtual press conference on June 18. “You have to dream big and go for that dream, just believe in yourself in everything you can do — not only what a man can do, but a woman can do. Everybody thinks about how I’ll get those seven seconds, and that’s the same with me, but I have to believe I can do it.”
Kipyegon’s task is much more bold than what Bannister did, given that she has to drop nearly 8 more seconds off the fastest time she’s ever run. Whereas Bannister only had to improve by less than a half of 1 percent, Kipyegon has to run 3 percent faster than she ever has before.
When Bannister made his historic attempt at the famous Iffley Road track in Oxford on May 6, 1954, Swedish runner Gunder Hägg’s world record of 4:01.2 had stood for nine years. Not only is Kipyegon the only woman to break 4:08; no other woman has run faster than the previous world record of 4:12.33 set by Sifan Hasaan in 2019.
Prior to that, Russia’s Svetlana Masterkova set the previous world record of 4:12.56 way back in the summer of 1996. In all, only a handful of women have ever broken 4:15 (six to be exact), and the top American, Nikki Hiltz, sits at No. 13 on the all-time list with a 4:16.35 personal best.
But Kipyegon believes it is possible. So do those in her training camp, including Kipchoge. Everything is possible, even if it hasn’t been done yet.
“I’m a three-time Olympic champion. I’ve achieved world championship titles. I thought, What else? Why not dream outside the box?” said Kipyegon, who is the mother to a young daughter. “And I told myself, ‘If you believe in yourself, and your team believes in you, you can do it.’”
When Bannister was finally able to break 4 minutes, he ran in primitive leather track spikes on a cinder track that were common to that era. To help Kipyegon run as fast as possible on one of the world’s fastest tracks, Nike will be outfitting her with a first-of-its-kind speed suit, a sports bra made of a revolutionary 3D-printed performance material, and an original pair of featherweight track spikes.
The Nike Fly Suit is a one-piece apparel outfit with a complementary headband and arm and leg sleeves featuring sleek, stretchy materials designed to help make Kipyegon “slippery” as she moves through the air as efficiently as possible. The Fly Suit has tiny air foil fins called Aeronodes to keep the wind “attached” or streamlined to her body. In other words, it will help the wind act like rushing water around a rock in a stream, essentially pulling the air tighter against her body and creating the smaller eddies behind her.
Kipyegon will also wear an innovative new sports bra made of Nike FlyWeb, a 3D-printed TPU material optimized for moisture management, better than any typical textile. The bra’s racerback style provides more range of motion, and the computationally designed form features a dynamic, precision-tuned surface that’s denser in some places for higher support.
On her feet, Kipyegon will wear Nike Victory Elite FK spikes, which include a ZoomX midsole, a full-length carbon-fiber plate, a slightly Zoom Air unit in the forefoot, and an airy, net-like mesh upper. Each shoe weighs less than 3 ounces, 25 percent lighter than the Victory 2 spikes she has worn for several years. Most importantly, the shoes were engineered to have a slightly increased heel-to-toe offset compared to the Victory 2.
“If she crosses the line in under 4 minutes, it won’t just be a new world record,” said Carrie Dimoff, the Nike Footwear Lead on the Breaking4 team. “It’ll be a new understanding of what’s possible for women in sport.”
Dropping nearly 8 more seconds off the best time in history is a bodacious challenge, but it’s more than just the time it will take her to run approximately four laps around the track. What Kipyegon said is equally important is daring to try it, something she hopes will be an inspiration to women and girls around the world. She knows it will send a message that women can attempt — and achieve — audacious goals, not only in running but in anything they attempt to do in their lives.
Can Kipyegon break 4 minutes for the mile? It would be an enormous breakthrough in human performance and certainly for women’s athletics.
Whatever time she winds up running — sub-4 or sub-4:07 — will not be eligible for world record ratification because of the event’s unsanctioned format and probable use of rotating pacers.
But even if she comes close and still comes up short — say she runs 4:01 or 4:03 or even 4:05 — it would be an astounding achievement that would certainly raise the bar and set a new vibe for women’s running.
Her personal bests in shorter distances suggest she might be fast enough to break 4 minutes. Although she ran an 800-meter race (roughly a half mile) in 1:57.68 five years ago when she was 26, her 1500-meter world record of 3:49.04 clocking from 2023 only converts to about a 4:06 mile.
The only race she’s run this year was a 1,000-meter race in China that she won in 2:29.21, just off her personal best and just 0.23 of a second off the world record. That time equates to a 4:00 mile based on consistent pacing without slowing from fatigue. That 1,000-meter time equates to a 4:12.70 mile time according to more accurate World Athletics’ Scoring Tables.
More than anything, Kipyegon wants to inspire women and girls and encourage them not to limit themselves.
“I want this attempt to say to women, ‘You can dream and make your dreams valid.’ This is the way to go as women, to push boundaries and dream big,” she said. “Being mentally strong and believing in everything I do, believing in the training, believing in, waking up to empower the next generation, believing in everything that I have done since I was younger and running barefoot to where I am now, has really given me that drive to still keep training and just be strong and go for big dreams.”
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Senior editor Brian Metzler has wear-tested more than 2,500 running shoes and is the author of “Kicksology: The Hype, Science, Culture and Cool of Running Shoes” (2019) and “Trail Running Illustrated” (2019). He has raced just about every distance from 100 meters to 100 miles, but he’s most eager to share stories about his experiences pack burro racing in Colorado.