On April 23, 2025, NIKE and Religion Kipyegon introduced their partnership on what they name a “moonshot”. Bear in mind how NIKE and Eliud Kipchoge did the #Breaking2 program? I recall how the younger followers (275,000 had been on our Twitter broadcast that evening). I used to be in Doha, Qatar, that evening, and I stayed up. I used to be transfixed. I used to be fascinated with the printed, the athletes concerned with Eliud, and the curiosity within the 15-35 12 months 35-year-olds, most of whom had by no means thought of operating a marathon, they usually turned Eliud Kipchoge followers in a single day.
Religion Kipyegon is the best girl middle-distance runner on this planet. She is a Three-time Olympic gold medalist at 1,500 meters. WR holder at 1,500m, mile, and 5,000 m! Once more, reality!
It should take a herculean effort to interrupt 4 minutes for a lady. However “Moonshots” are excellent. Proper now, I believe Religion will be capable to run a mile in June in 4:03-4:05, which is astounding. However, who is aware of, that 14:05 energy could shock us!
What do I consider NIKE asserting it now? It’s a nice idea to construct curiosity in ladies’s distance operating. Religion Kipyegon is the best middle-distance ladies’s racer on this planet. Can she push herself to such a brand new customary?
I’m not certain, however it’s going to absolutely be enjoyable to look at!
Religion Kipyegon will make one try on June 26, 2025, on the Stade Charlety in Paris, France. The Stade Charlety stadium seats nearly 22,000 and is an excellent sanctuary for our sport. I consider I visited it in 2015 and 2016.
Right here’s the discharge on Religion Kipyegon and NIKE’s Breaking 4:
How do you make the unattainable potential? You begin by calling your moonshot.
And as moonshots go, Religion Kipyegon’s is as audacious as they arrive. The longtime Nike athlete, already the world document holder within the mile, will try to change into the primary girl to interrupt the 4-minute threshold within the distance, harnessing the complete energy of Nike to assist make it occur.
Within the course of, she’ll push the bounds of sport past what’s lengthy believed to be achievable, setting the stage for future generations to dream massive.
“I’m a three-time Olympic champion. I’ve achieved World Championship titles. I assumed, What else? Why not dream exterior the field?” says Kipyegon, a Kenyan native and mom to a younger daughter. “And I instructed myself, ‘If you happen to consider in your self, and your crew believes in you, you are able to do it.’”
No girl runner is positioned to interrupt the 4-minute barrier alone, however that actuality can change with the proper partnership. Nike is offering its unyielding assist for Kipyegon’s pursuit of the landmark feat: She and the model have labored collectively to optimize each side of her Breaking4 try, creating the perfect circumstances for her to push the bounds of chance. What’s extra, Kipyegon’s moonshot is as a lot about inspiring future generations to problem the unattainable as it’s about redefining limits within the current, for each elite and on a regular basis athletes.
Kipyegon will make one try on the milestone on June 26 on the Stade Charléty in Paris, a time and placement particularly chosen to align together with her coaching schedule and maximize her efficiency.
“Religion is a once-in-a-generation expertise, and her audacious purpose is precisely what Nike stands for,” says Elliott Hill, President & CEO, NIKE, Inc. “Breaking4 is the form of daring dream we are going to do all the pieces in our energy to make actual — serving to each elite and on a regular basis athletes to consider something is feasible. No different model can provide the extent of experience, innovation, and assist our Nike groups can. Alongside Religion, our innovators are breaking obstacles by combining cutting-edge sports activities science with revolutionary footwear and attire innovation to assist her obtain a historic purpose.”
In her try, Kipyegon is pursuing a feat that was as soon as thought of an insurmountable limitation and has, till now, remained past the attain of the world’s most elite ladies athletes. She’s going to try to shave no less than 7.65 seconds off her world document time of 4:07.64, set in 2023, to change into the primary girl to interrupt the brink Roger Bannister first surpassed roughly 70 years in the past.
Lengthy earlier than Bannister’s historic achievement, and within the seven many years since, the mile has been held as a common benchmark of athletic prowess amongst athletes in the USA — ubiquitous in monitor and area competitors, youth health assessments, and cross-disciplinary coaching.
No girl has come nearer than Kipyegon, who selected to try breaking the 4-minute mile as a problem distinct from her dominance within the 1,500-meter run, for which she additionally holds the world document, and to additional cement her legacy as probably the most embellished girl middle-distance athlete of all time.
Nonetheless, Kipyegon’s journey represents greater than the achievement of a particular, singular time. The pursuit symbolizes braveness, ambition, and freedom, encouraging athletes of all backgrounds, disciplines, and intensities to chase their desires, irrespective of how bold. Her moonshot reveals future generations that braveness comes from the try, whatever the purpose.
“I need this try to say to ladies, ‘You possibly can dream and make your desires legitimate,’” she says. “That is the best way to go as ladies, to push boundaries and dream massive.”
In doing that, Kipyegon is harnessing the complete energy of Nike, her accomplice of 16 years, to optimize the circumstances for her historic try.
Nike obsessively examines each element, spanning footwear, attire, aerodynamics, physiology, and thoughts science, to reinforce Kipyegon’s efficiency. This underscores the model’s holistic strategy and elementary perception in pushing the bounds of human potential.
“Superior innovation at Nike is pushed by a deep dedication to partnering with athletes like Religion, turning desires into dares and dares into future,” says John Hoke, Chief Innovation Officer. “This brave try at breaking a monumental boundary embodies the alchemy of artwork, science, and athlete, resetting ambitions and amplifying impression. Along with athletes, we strategy issues systemically, creatively, and parametrically — no drawback too giant, no element too small. As all the time, we stand in awe of serving to athletes obtain greatness.”
To enhance her document time by no less than 7.65 seconds, Kipyegon might want to run every of her 4 laps a median of almost 2 seconds sooner. This can be a vital accomplishment, contemplating it took 34 years to trim 8 seconds off Paula Ivan’s document in 1989, when ladies’s mile instances had been first tracked, to Kipyegon’s present document.
NIKE is teaming up with Religion Kipyegon, the Olympic champion, World champion, and world’s best girl miler, for an additional “moonshot”! On June 26, 2025, NIKE might be supporting Religion’s try to be the primary girl to interrupt 4 minutes for the mile.Roger Bannister was the primary… pic.twitter.com/xalTsjfusy
— RunBlogRun (@RunBlogRun) April 23, 2025
Kipyegon is motivated by this problem and goals to encourage the subsequent era of athletes to see freedom in pushing societal and private limits in new methods. This contains Kipyegon’s daughter, her biggest inspiration, who might be ready for her on the end line, representing the complementary duality of her life as an elite athlete and a mom.
In the meantime, Nike’s holistic assist for Kipyegon’s historic try underscores its historical past as the model constructed by runners, for runners, and because the biggest champion of girls in sport, pioneering new paths for girls athletes by inviting them into sport and delivering science-backed innovation that’s personalised and disruptive.
The challenge can be the newest instance of Nike’s historical past of enabling daring, dare-to-dream sport moments, similar to Joan Benoit Samuelson’s groundbreaking victory within the first ladies’s Olympic marathon and Eliud Kipchoge’s Breaking2 moonshot to surmount the 2-hour marathon barrier.
“For greater than 50 years, Nike has made athletes’ desires actual by serving to them redefine obstacles and obtain the unattainable,” says Tanya Hvizdak, VP, World Sports activities Advertising and marketing. “Religion epitomizes all the pieces we love about sport and our perception in our athletes. Her moonshot continues our legacy of supporting daring, pioneering pursuits that transfer the world ahead by way of the facility of sport.”
