On April 23, 2025, NIKE and Religion Kipyegon introduced their partnership on what they name a “moonshot”. Keep in mind how NIKE and Eliud Kipchoge did the #Breaking2 program? I recall how the younger followers (275,000 have been on our Twitter broadcast that night time). I used to be in Doha, Qatar, that night time, and I stayed up. I used to be transfixed. I used to be fascinated with the published, the athletes concerned with Eliud, and the curiosity within the 15-35 yr 35-year-olds, most of whom had by no means thought of operating a marathon, they usually grew to become Eliud Kipchoge followers in a single day.
Religion Kipyegon is the best girl middle-distance runner on the earth. 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 would take a herculean effort to interrupt 4 minutes for a girl. However “Moonshots” are excellent. Proper now, I believe Religion will have the ability to run a mile in June in 4:03-4:05, which is astounding. However, who is aware of, that 14:05 power could shock us!
What do I consider NIKE saying 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 the earth. Can she push herself to such a brand new commonplace?
I’m not positive, however it’ll certainly be enjoyable to observe!
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 a superb 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 doable? 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 report holder within the mile, will try to develop 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 boundaries of sport past what’s lengthy believed to be achievable, setting the stage for future generations to dream large.
“I’m a three-time Olympic champion. I’ve achieved World Championship titles. I believed, What else? Why not dream exterior the field?” says Kipyegon, a Kenyan native and mom to a younger daughter. “And I informed myself, ‘For those who consider in your self, and your group 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 help 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 best situations for her to push the boundaries of risk. 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 objective is strictly what Nike stands for,” says Elliott Hill, President & CEO, NIKE, Inc. “Breaking4 is the form of daring dream we’ll do all the things 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 supply the extent of experience, innovation, and help our Nike groups can. Alongside Religion, our innovators are breaking boundaries by combining cutting-edge sports activities science with revolutionary footwear and attire innovation to assist her obtain a historic objective.”
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 is going to try to shave at the very least 7.65 seconds off her world report time of 4:07.64, set in 2023, to develop 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 a long time since, the mile has been held as a common benchmark of athletic prowess amongst athletes in the USA — ubiquitous in observe and area competitors, youth health checks, 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 report, and to additional cement her legacy as essentially 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 goals, irrespective of how formidable. Her moonshot exhibits future generations that braveness comes from the try, whatever the objective.
“I need this try to say to ladies, ‘You may dream and make your goals legitimate,’” she says. “That is the best way to go as ladies, to push boundaries and dream large.”
In doing that, Kipyegon is harnessing the complete energy of Nike, her companion of 16 years, to optimize the situations 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 boundaries of human potential.
“Superior innovation at Nike is pushed by a deep dedication to partnering with athletes like Religion, turning goals 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 influence. Along with athletes, we strategy issues systemically, creatively, and parametrically — no drawback too massive, no element too small. As all the time, we stand in awe of serving to athletes obtain greatness.”
To enhance her report time by at the very least 7.65 seconds, Kipyegon might want to run every of her 4 laps a mean of almost 2 seconds quicker. It is a vital accomplishment, contemplating it took 34 years to trim 8 seconds off Paula Ivan’s report in 1989, when ladies’s mile instances have been first tracked, to Kipyegon’s present report.
NIKE is teaming up with Religion Kipyegon, the Olympic champion, World champion, and world’s best girl miler, for one more “moonshot”! On June 26, 2025, NIKE will likely 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 technology of athletes to see freedom in pushing societal and private limits in new methods. This contains Kipyegon’s daughter, her biggest inspiration, who will likely 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 help 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 undertaking can be the most recent 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’ goals actual by serving to them redefine boundaries and obtain the unattainable,” says Tanya Hvizdak, VP, International Sports activities Advertising. “Religion epitomizes all the things 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 means of the ability of sport.”
