The Significance of Brigid Kosgei’s Marathon Record
By REI
Flying under the radar, this runner from Kenya has destroyed the women’s marathon world record.
It’s easy to understand why running fans almost missed one of the most epic marathon performances ever last weekend. All eyes were focused on Eliud Kipchoge’s two-hour, barrier-breaking effort in Vienna—plenty of U.S. fans stayed up well into the wee hours on Saturday night to catch it, in fact. When the 34-year-old runner from Kenya hit 1:59:40, it seemed as if the sport had used up all its mind-boggling performances for one weekend.
Then 25-year-old Brigid Kosgei from Kenya set off at a screaming pace on Sunday at the Chicago Marathon, and runners the world over began to sit up and take notice. She passed the 5-kilometer mark at a pace that would have put her across the finish line at 2:10:31. Those paying attention were rewarded with another—and some would argue equally more important—barrier-breaking marathon performance. Kosgei ultimately crossed the finish line in 2:14:04, shattering Paula Radcliffe’s 16-year-old world record of 2:15:25.
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For Magness and others, like Dr. Michael Joyner, a Mayo Clinic physiologist, Kosgei’s world record is equivalent to, or better than, Kipchoge’s sub-2:00 mark. Joyner and two colleagues, in fact, did the math back in 2015 that showed Radcliffe’s 2:15:25 marathon time from 2003 had already achieved the equivalent to a men’s two-hour marathon. So by those measures, Kosgei blew it out of the park.
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