In 2019, Eliud Chipgoke ran a sub-two hour marathon in an unofficial race wearing last-generation shoes. The legitimacy of this feat was naturally questioned due to unusual racing conditions and suspicions of technological doping. In this work, we assess the likelihood of a sub-two hour marathon in an official race, and the potential influence of Vaporfly shoes, by studying the evolution of running top performances from 2001 to 2019 for distances ranging from 10k to marathon. The analysis is performed using extreme value theory, a field of statistics dealing with analysis of records. We find a significant evidence of technological doping with a 12% increase of the probability that a new world record for marathon-man discipline is set in 2021. However, results suggest that achieving a sub-two hour marathon in an official event in 2021 is still very unlikely, and exceeds 10% probability only by 2025.

翻译：2019年,埃利乌德·奇普戈克(Eliud Chipgoke)在一场非官方比赛中,穿着最后一代鞋,跑了一个2小时的马拉松。这一壮举的合法性自然受到非同寻常的赛跑条件和技术兴奋剂的怀疑的质疑。在这项工作中,我们通过研究从2001年到2019年在从10公里到马拉松的距离上运行顶级表演的演变过程,评估了在官方比赛中进行2小时的马拉松的可能性,以及Vaporfly鞋的潜在影响。分析使用极值理论进行,这是分析记录的一个统计领域。我们发现,在技术上的兴奋率方面有重要证据表明,在2021年马拉松男子纪律的新世界纪录的概率增加了12%。然而,结果显示,在2021年的一次正式比赛中实现2小时的马拉松仍然极不可能实现,到2025年才超过10%的概率。