Passage 27
学霸导读 2019 年，肯尼亚的埃鲁德·基普乔格成为全球第一位马拉松跑进两小时的选手，却没有被田联认可……
On a clear morning in Vienna （ 维也纳 ）， among thousands of cheering spectators， a single runner raised his arms in triumph （ 胜利 ） as he crossed the f inish line. The timer reads 1： 59： 40. The famous Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge， looking barely winded （ 喘不上气的 ）， joined his family and team in c 1 his historic achievement of completing a marathon in less than two hours on October 21， 2019.
The idea of running a marathon itself is daunting enough. Most amateur （ 业余的 ） runners complete a marathon with a time of four hours or more， which is more than d 2 the time Kipchoge spent on it. One actually needs to run 21.1 kilometers per hour to cover 42.2 kilometers in under two hours. Break that down and you get about two minutes 50 seconds per kilometer. Try running at that speed and see how long you can l 3 . I managed about 45 seconds.
While Kipchoge’s achievement has truly pushed the boundaries of human limitations, it will unfortunately not be considered as a new world record, as the event was conducted under special conditions and had no other racers. However, Kipchoge is s 4 the current world record holder for the marathon with a time of 2: 01: 39, which he achieved at the Berlin Marathon in 2018 by beating the previous world record by 78 seconds.
“I’m the happiest man in the world to be the f irst human to run a marathon in under two hours and I can tell people that no human is l 5 ,” Kipchoge said after his historic run. “I’m happy to inspire somebody. And even if they say it’s not a world record, I have b 6 a barrier.”
Kipchoge might be right. In 1991， a paper published by M.J. Joyner examined the theoretical （ 理论上的 ） limit of marathon runners. It claimed that the fastest time humanly possible to run a marathon is 1： 57： 58. Kipchoge is less than two minutes from that time. Whether that barrier can be broken or not， there will always be challengers who are e 7 to give it a try.
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高频词汇
spectator /spek'teɪtə（r）/ n. 观众
historic /hɪ'stɒrɪk/ adj. 历史上著名（或重要）的
current /'kʌrənt/ adj. 当前的；现在的
previous /'priːviəs/ adj. 先前的；以往的
barrier /'bæriə（r）/ n. 屏障；障碍物；障碍