The stats and shoes behind Chepngetich's amazing marathon world record

Ruth Chepngetich’s show astatine the Chicago Marathon connected Sunday shredded grounds books and reset expectations connected what mightiness beryllium imaginable implicit 26.2 miles.

The Kenyan clocked two hours 9 minutes 57 seconds, taking astir 2 minutes disconnected Ethiopian Tigst Assefa's satellite record.

But the item beneath the header clip was conscionable arsenic jaw-dropping.

Chepngetich came done the halfway people successful 1:04:16, which would person been the fifth-fastest women’s half-marathon clip successful history.

The 1:05:41 she ran for the 2nd fractional of the contention would person been 36th connected the all-time list.

In total, her marathon was the equivalent of moving much than 8 and a fractional Parkruns, clocking 15mins 24secs for each.

Only 10 competitors successful the men’s contention successful Chicago managed to bushed 30-year-old Chepngetich’s time.

Indeed, connected World Athletics scoring tables which are designed to benchmark performances crossed disciplines and betwixt genders, her show was ranked equivalent to a 1:59:37 men’s marathon.

In reality, the men’s satellite grounds is astir a infinitesimal slower.

The effect lopped a monolithic 4mins 22secs disconnected Chepngetich’s erstwhile champion – a triumph successful the aforesaid race successful 2022.

Chepngetich has sizeable past successful the marathon, winning the satellite rubric successful Qatar successful 2019 and coming wrong 14 seconds of occurrence successful a erstwhile satellite grounds attempt.

However, her stark betterment against the timepiece has go much acquainted successful the 'supershoe' era.

Between 1988 and 1998 the men’s marathon satellite grounds was unchanged.

Now the breakthroughs are much regular and much significant.

In a small implicit 10 years, the men’s people has dropped 4 times, with astir 3 minutes wiped disconnected the clock.

Chepngetich’s people is the 3rd caller women’s satellite grounds successful 5 years, with the fastest women’s clip implicit 26.2 miles dropping by 5 and fractional minutes successful that period.

High-tech foams, c plates and pressurised airbags person combined successful the soles of the latest shoes to instrumentality much vigor to athletes, sparking an arms contention among manufacturers.

World Athletics has moved rapidly to modulate footwear technology.

Chepngetich was wearing Nike’s Alphafly 3, 1 of hundreds of antithetic models that person been checked, validated and published connected the World Athletics website and specializer app., external

The regulations implicit footwear exertion agelong implicit 18 pages, external and see restrictions connected the improvement of ‘intelligent’ shoes which mightiness alteration sole creation crossed antithetic parts of a runner’s stride pattern.

Manufacturers are allowed to proviso sponsored athletes with prototype shoes which are not yet disposable to the nationalist for investigating purposes extracurricular Olympic Games and World Championships.

However, different approved shoes indispensable beryllium oregon person been disposable to the wide public. Chepngetich’s chosen brace retail astatine £285.

Kenyan region moving has been beset by doping scandals successful caller years, and Chepngetich was asked astir doping aft her triumph successful Chicago.

Former marathon satellite grounds holder Wilson Kipsang, erstwhile half-marathon satellite grounds holder Abraham Kiptum, Rio 2016 Olympic marathon champion Jemima Sumgong and London Marathon victor Daniel Wanjiru are among those to person been banned.

World Athletics president Lord Coe visited Nairobi successful January 2023, but Kenya's anti-doping bureau says it has since been weakened by fund cuts from the government.

Asked whether she could recognize wherefore the affirmative tests mightiness origin immoderate fans to uncertainty her caller satellite record, Chepngetich said: "People indispensable talk."