Three Minute Mile?

ONE thing is certain about an athletics world record... it will always be broken.

As athletes become ever fitter and as coaches discover new tweaks to techniques, even feats once deemed insurmountable are surpassed.

'Close to its perfection point'

A Two-Hour Marathon?

ONE of the mighty un-scaled peaks of athletics lost a little more of its once presumed invincibility late last month when Haile Gebrselassie gave the world a glimpse of the first two-hour marathon

More than four decades since the sport's last great conquests - Roger Bannister's destruction of the four-minute mile barrier in 1954 and Jim Hines breaking 10seconds for the 100m in 1968 - the same lasting legacy achieved by these two men beckons in the marathon.

Gebrselassie sliced 27 seconds off his own world record to win in 2hr03min 59sec

By breaking through the 2:04 barrier, he scattered the clouds that had obscured the two-hour peak.

Expert opinion is divided over how long it will take before the summit is reached, and some even remain doubtful it will be.