It was the largest single improvement on the marathon world record since Derek Clayton improved the mark by 2:23 in 1967. In the German capital on Sunday, Kipchoge had just a handful of pacemakers for company from the early stages of the race. The Kenyan passed through five kilometres in 14:24 and 10 kilometres in 29:21. By 40 kilometres, reached in 1:55:32, a world record looked a certainty. Kipchoge came agonisingly close to sporting immortality by nearly running the first sub two-hour marathon last year.

Source: The Local September 16, 2018 10:07 UTC