Earlier this week, I found myself dissecting an embargoed briefing video frame by frame, like a JFK obsessive trying to squeeze meaning from the Zapruder film. I’d just had an interview with three top scientists from Nike’s Breaking4 team, the group tasked with coordinating Faith Kipyegon’s attempt to run the first women’s sub-four-minute mile later this month. I got some answers, but I still had some big questions, and I hoped the video might reveal some clues.
Ever since Nike announced the Breaking4 initiative back in April, there’s been speculation about how Kipyegon will be able to make the leap from her current world-record time of 4:07.64 to sub-four. It’s reminiscent of the uncertainty that surrounded the company’s Breaking2 project in 2017, when they announced that Eliud Kipchoge and two other runners would aim for a sub-two-hour marathon at a time when the world record was 2:02:57. Such a big leap—2.4 percent, compared to the 3.1 percent Kipyegon needs—seemed implausible, and most observers dismissed the announcement as an overhyped publicity stunt. Then Kipchoge ran 2:00:25…
