Will a final hurdle fall in 2025?

It was once said no human could run a marathon in under two hours. Now that it's been done, can it be done in competition?

- Rudraneil Sengupta

With the force of inevitability, we can expect the new year to bring new sporting records. Who would bet against Armand Duplantis bettering his own world record for the 11th time in the pole vault? Or Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone breaking her 400m hurdles record for the seventh time, and pushing her run time closer to the improbable 50 seconds?

Running defines the limits of the human body in ways that few other sporting disciplines do, and so it is in the world of running that we get our clearest view of how sports science is pushing the edges of what is possible too.

Just think of the Dutch Sifan Hassan winning bronze in the 5,000m and 10,000m races at the Paris Olympics and topping that off with gold in the marathon, with a time (2:22:55) that set a new Olympic record.