Kipchoge’s history-making challenge nears 5m YouTube views

Eliud Kipchoge’s successful attempt to run a sub-two-hour marathon has received 4.93 million views to date for the live and on-demand stream on video-sharing platform YouTube.

On Saturday, the Kenyan athletics great set a time of 1:59:40.2 in Vienna, Austria, with the Ineos 1:59 Challenge record attempt watched by a global audience.

Organisers said the YouTube live stream reached a peak of 779,000 concurrent viewers as Kipchoge crossed the finish line just before 10:15am CEST. The YouTube live stream has now had 4.9 million views as of yesterday (Monday).

Footage and content from the event was produced and distributed by British sports production and media company Sunset+Vine. A total of 49 broadcasters aired the event live to over 200 territories across the world.

Across Ineos 1:59 and Kipchoge’s social media channels there were a combined 39.8 million video views and 2.6 million engagements on Saturday.

Jo Grindley, chief marketing and commercial officer of Ineos Team UK, which led on the engagement side of the Ineos 1:59 Challenge, said: “The initial numbers coming from this weekend’s coverage are simply astounding and there is no sign that the coverage is slowing down.

“It will take a long time for the impact of this event to fully sink in but Kipchoge said in his post-event press conference that ‘sport can unify people, I wanted to sell the message to the world that no human is limited’ and we are delighted that every piece of evidence points to the fact that Kipchoge has successfully achieved his goal.”