Unbreakable records that resurfaced with the breaking of the marathon two-hour barrier

*This content was translated by AI.

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with athletics officials who retired after a long absence. Some coaches and veteran reporters who had witnessed the golden age of Korean marathon, led by Hwang Young-cho and Lee Bong-ju, gathered together. Naturally, the conversation turned to past star athletes, memories of Korean athletics in the 1990s, and changes in global athletics.

And at some point, everyone's conversation converged on a historic scene that shook the global sports world a month ago. It was the collapse of the men's marathon "two-hour barrier."

"In the end, humans have done it."

The marathon two-hour barrier, once thought to be an absolute limit that humans could never cross, was one of the most symbolic boundaries in sports history. Running 42.195km in under two hours was long considered physiologically impossible for humans. However, in the recent London Marathon, Kenya's Sabaastian Sawe recorded 1 hour 59 minutes 30 seconds, finally breaking the two-hour barrier for the first time in official competition history. It was a moment when another great wall in human sports history crumbled.

The saying that records exist to be broken is therefore one of the most frequently quoted expressions in sports. In fact, the history of sports is a history of challenging human limits. Advances in science, evolution of training methods, and equipment innovations have continuously pushed human abilities to new levels. Recent sports science has become incomparably sophisticated compared to the past. Data is collected on athletes' heart rates, lactate levels, sleep patterns, and recovery speeds, while AI analysis and biomechanics research are also mobilized. Carbon-plate running shoes are evaluated as an innovation that shortens marathon records by several minutes. Now, sports have entered the realm of almost precision science, beyond the domain of mere talent and grit.

However, what is interesting is that even with the advancement of science and technology, there are still records that remain unbroken. Such records carry not just numbers, but also an era, the limits of human ability, and sometimes controversy and suspicion.

A representative example is the men's 100m world record. Usain Bolt (Jamaica), known as the "human bullet," set a time of 9.58 seconds at the 2009 Berlin World Championships, which remains unbroken to this day. At the time, Bolt displayed such overwhelming performance that he was even described as not human. Since then, countless star sprinters have emerged, yet 9.58 seconds still feels distant.

In the past, records were broken every few years, but now even the world's best sprinters struggle to break the 9.60-second barrier. The men's 100m season's best time this year was 9.89 seconds, set by Botswana's Kholen Kevinitsipi in April. There is still a significant gap from Usain Bolt's world record of 9.58 seconds. Some experts even suggest that human pure speed may have already approached physiological limits.

In women's athletics, even older records remain intact. Florence Griffith-Joyner of the United States set a women's 100m record of 10.49 seconds and a 200m record of 21.34 seconds around the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which have remained unbroken for nearly 40 years. Many athletics fans today still recall her as a symbol of that era, with her glamorous nail polish, explosive speed, and overwhelming records at the Seoul Olympics. However, after her sudden death at the young age of 39, these records have not been completely free from the shadow of drug suspicions. While they officially remain world records, there are also many evaluations that they are records difficult for modern athletes to approach under normal conditions.

Looking beyond athletics to the entire world of sports, there are many similar cases. In swimming, weightlifting, cycling, and other sports, records from certain eras often remain for long periods. Some records were broken thanks to technological innovations, while others became even harder to approach due to new technical regulations. In the end, records are not just the result of individual ability, but complex outcomes created by the era's environment, science, equipment, systems, and competitive structures.

Korean sports are no different. One of the most symbolic records in Korean athletics is still Lee Bong-ju's men's marathon Korean record of 2 hours 7 minutes 20 seconds. Lee Bong-ju set this record at the 2000 Tokyo Marathon, and even more than 20 years later, it remains unbroken. At that time, Korean marathon had competitiveness on the global stage. The tradition of Korean marathon, led by Hwang Young-cho and Lee Bong-ju, was a great source of pride for the nation. However, now, with the decline in the athlete base, a shift toward recreational sports, and intensifying international competition, that record feels even more distant.

The same applies to women's sprinting. In the women's 100m, Lee Young-sook's record of 11.49 seconds, set in 1994, has remained unbroken for over 30 years. While Kim Kuk-young broke his own Korean record in the men's 100m in succession, changing the era, women's sprint records remain stuck at past numbers.

Regarding the fact that records in some sports have remained unbroken for a long time, some argue that we must also consider the training environments and record-measurement environments that existed in the international sports world at the time. Especially in the 1980s and 1990s, the global athletics world was under the influence of Cold War-era state-sponsored sports systems, and drug controversies never ceased.

However, what is important is not the record itself, but the human spirit that challenges it. The reason sports provide emotion is not simply because numbers change. It lies in the fact that humans continuously challenge the walls they once believed to be impossible.

The marathon two-hour barrier was once said to be an area humans could not cross. But in the end, humans succeeded. Even records that now seem eternal may one day be rewritten by a new generation.

At the end of the conversation with the retired athletics officials that day, there was a statement that everyone agreed on.

"In the end, sports are the history created by human dreams."

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*This content was translated by AI.