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That run isn’t and never has been considered the marathon WR for that and other reasons

It's important to distinguish between the Breaking2/INEOS pacing (with a rotating team of pacemakers that drop in and out of the race) and the pacing that has been allowed in every world record (pacemakers that start with the field, but may drop out, as does Sowinski in his own pacing).

In fact Kipchoge's legal world record (the 2:01:09, not the 1:59) had pacemakers for the first 25km (of 42.2).

What are the other reasons? I'm not familiar with running, I assumed it was the rotating team.

[1] says that as well as the 41 rotating pacemakers, there's the lack of open competition and the delivery of water by bicycle.

Guinness recognises it as "Fastest marathon distance (male)" and "First marathon distance under two hours" despite these factors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineos_1:59_Challenge

The parent above is "gatekeeping" by saying that even though the runner ran the fastest marathon, it wasn't an IAAF-qualified marathon.

Kipchoge currently has the WR for both.

The whole controversy for the "fastest marathon" is they kept cycling fresh/new runners during the run for Kipchoge to draft off of and conserve energy. These pacers (like the aforementioned runner in the HN article) provide an aerodynamic boost.

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