First Sub-Two Hour Marathon Challenge - Why Vienna Was Chosen?

More+Videos ♦ Published: October 7, 2019; 19:09 ♦ (Vindobona)

Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge, the current marathon world record holder, plans to break the last great barrier of modern athletics - the 2-hour marathon. An epic challenge of this magnitude needs a suitable and equally grand location to do it justice, and the Prater in Vienna is the perfect fit - from the air quality to the climate.

Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge wants to be the first person to undercut the two-hour mark in the marathon at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge. / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / Denis Barthel [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

In just a few days, Vienna's Prater Hauptallee will be the venue of a sporting event of worldwide significance.

Eliud Kipchoge, Olympic marathon champion and world record holder, wants to be the first person to undercut the two-hour mark in the marathon at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge.

The time window of ten days for the Challenge was concretized to three days on the basis…