How are they bending the rules if they try to prove that a human can run a marathon distance in less than two hours? I am not arguing that he has run a marathon below 2:00, but he is the first recorded human that has achieved such a feat - which is kind of a barrier many people have tried to break or at least recognized to exist - even though it has required them to remove all possible outside factors like wind and they even re-paved parts of the route to make conditions optimal, and he got pretty lucky with the weather today.
Are you sure that he had artificial draft from the pace car?
From the photos it was at least 1 1/2 body lengths in front of him and since it was projecting the optimal path for the pacers the distance was probably very constant the whole time.
So, if they wanted to prove that a human can run a sub 2 h marathon distance, then why is not the entire doping arsenal in play? Similar, one could probably improve on the record by driving behind the runner with a car with an really big fan. Neither of that was done to prove that a human can run sub 2 h. My argument is now, that would shatter the spectacle. The NYT would not report on the first fan assisted sub-two hour marathon run, so they don't do it because their ultimate goal is the NYT headline "Eliud Kipchoge Breaks Two-Hour Marathon Barrier." (Which by your admission is actually misleading.
While I do recognize that the bar is arbitrarily set I do still believe that there is a significant difference between a scenario that could very well happen by chance in the normal world (optimal weather, zero wind, optimal surface) compared to doping and pushing the runner with wind from behind.
Well, we have arbitrary rules, that produce a result close to an arbitrary timespan. Then you change the rules in a way that breaks the timespan, in a way that is compatible with an ill defined cultural expectation what is essential and what is incidential of the original rules.
I mean, of course to I realize that a fan would violate some expectation of long distance running more severly than pacemakers and a specially prepared course, I just say that to call it sports, other teams of runners should be allowed to compete according to the same rules.
They didn't change the rules. That is why it is not a world record. Because they broke specific rules to see if it was possible at all before attempting it in record eligible conditions.
The importance of the attempt is that nobody knew if it was actually possible to run a marathon in under 2 hours without performance enhancing substances, i.e., if the theoretical estimate was unattainable in real world attempts.
The use of the pacing car and bringing the water to him are the only things that would not be replicated in a real world race, since runners already pace and draft off each other in the lead group of a marathon.
Expect to see several attempts to come close to 2 hours on the best several Marathon Majors races with a likely would record in Kipchoge's next competitive marathon.
I strongly suspect that marathon runners always try to be very quick. (At least if they actually try to break a world record.)
However, a very concrete example would be bringing him water, as opposed to slowing down and grabbing it. Something that I can easily imagine brings 20 s, and therefore we still do not know, if a 2 h marathon is possible.
