Three-time Olympic medalist Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a marathon in under two hours, clocking in at 1:59:40 as he passed the finish line Saturday morning in Vienna, Austria.

“It has taken 65 years for a human being to make history in sport, after Roger Bannister made history in 1954,” Kipchoge, who’s Kenyan, said in an interview with NTV Kenya shortly after the race.

Bannister broke the 4-minute mile record at an athletic meet in Oxford in May 1954.

“No human is limited,” Kipchoge said.

Kipchoge, the reigning Olympic marathon champion, was already a leading figure in the race to break the 2-hour mark, which the race’s organizer, chemicals company Ineos, called “the last great barrier of modern athletics.”

The ability of a human to run that fast wasn’t even considered possible until the 1990s In 1991, Dr. Michael Joyner published a paper that estimated the fastest time for a human to run a marathon at 1:57:58.

“It’s validating to me, but Mr. Kipchoge did all the running,” Joyner said in a phone interview with NPR.

A short distance before the end of the 26.2 miles, a mere 20 seconds before the fabled two hours were up, Kipchoge pointed at the roaring crowds on either side of him, beating his chest as he crossed. He embraced his wife, Grace Sugutt, before his team piled in on a tidal wave of admiration.

“Today we went to the Moon and came back to earth! I am at a loss for words for all the support I have received from all over the world,” Kipchoge tweeted.

A video posted on Twitter by the National Olympic Committee for Kenya showed the crowd in Eldoret, Kenya – Kipchoge’s hometown – cheering and jumping as his record time was announced. According to Citizen Digital, a Kenyan news organization, Kipchoge will have a street named after him in Eldoret when he returns.

On the Hauptallee, a stretch of tree-bordered road that runs through Prater park, where the course was set, teammates lifted Kipchoge up on their shoulders, draping a Kenyan flag around his shoulders.

In several interviews, Kipchoge has compared his attempt to beat two hours to the effort that goes into putting a man on the moon.

Kipchoge, 34, had come to dominate the world of marathon running, winning the Chicago Marathon in 2014, the Berlin and London marathons in 2015, and the London Marathon in 2016.

He competed in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, snagging the gold medal in the marathon.

The following year, 2017, saw Kipchoge win another Berlin Marathon and participate in Nike’s Breaking2 event, a marathon held on a Formula One racetrack in Monza, Italy. It was the first marathon Kipchoge ran where he sought to break the two-hour mark, assisted by a team of pacesetters who acted as a windshield running in a V-formation around him. The assistance would mean that, if he beat two hours, the record would stand as unofficial.

On May 6, 2017, he crossed the finish line in Monza 25 seconds past the two-hour mark.

Undeterred, in 2018 Kipchoge won the London Marathon, then turned around and competed in the Berlin Marathon later that year.

At the time, the men’s marathon world record was 2:02:57, held by fellow Kenyan marathoner Dennis Kimetto. Kipchoge beat that time by a minute and 18 seconds, coming in at 2:01:39. He now held the men’s world record for the first time in his life.

If he had stopped then, he would have gone down as one of history’s best marathoners. But the glory of the record in Berlin meant that legendary sub-2-hour record, which had eluded him a year before, was back in his sights.

Saturday’s feat that tested the upper limits of physical prowess, however, will not be officially recognized as a world record by the International Association of Athletics Federations, much like the Breaking2 event. The race, held in Prater park in the heart of Vienna, was not an open event, the course in the park was evened ahead of time and Kipchoge had a team of 41 pacesetters with him, running in rotating teams of seven.

“Remember, the 41 pacemakers are among the best athletes ever, in the whole world,” Kipchoge said. Among them was Matthew Centrowitz, who earned a gold medal for the U.S. in the men’s 1500 meters at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Kipchoge was also guided by an electric car that projected a green laser, moving at the pace needed to beat two hours, according to the IAAF.

Kipchoge’s shoes were also the subject of much interest. He tied on Nike’s new model of the NEXT% shoe, equipped with a carbon-fiber plate.

Dr. Joyner said it is all about maximizing the runner’s energy economy.

“There’s less energy loss with each foot strike. They’ve tuned it so that the recoil properties of the shoe optimize the ability of the runner to apply force to the ground.”

Between the shoes, the pacers, the closed race and the electric car, Joyner said that the phrase “assisted” in conjunction with Saturday’s marathon needs to be put in context, especially in comparison to Roger Bannister’s mile 65 years ago.

“Bannister had two pacers, the track at Oxford had been recently refurbished, Bannister was a medical student working on maximum human performance, and his shoes had special ultralight spikes,” Joyner said. “I see many parallels between him and Mr. Kipchoge.”

The lack of sanction has, however, not deterred Kipchoge’s supporters. He’s now trending on Twitter, and many professional runners and other athletes have voiced their support, like four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome. According to The Associated Press, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta called Kipchoge shortly after the race.

“You’ve made history and made Kenya proud while at it,” Kenyatta tweeted.

Alexander Tuerk is an intern at Here and Now.

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Updated at 2:55 a.m. ET Saturday

Facing public backlash over penalizing a gamer for his statements in support of Hong Kong protesters, Blizzard Entertainment released a statement late Friday announcing a reduction of his penalties.

Blizzard Entertainment initially banned professional esports player Blitzchung from competitions for 12 months and rescinded his 2019 winnings, said to be $10,000, over his statements in support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.

Blizzard Entertainment President J. Allen Brack said in a statement Friday that the company’s relationship with China “had no influence on our decision” and that the “specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made.” Brack said the company wanted broadcasts to remain focused on gaming alone and “not a platform for divisive social or political views,” regardless of the message.

But Blizzard said it had initially “reacted too quickly” and would reduce Blitzchung’s tournament participation ban from 12 months to six and said it would reinstate his competition winnings.

The announcement came amid a growing protest movement against the company in the gaming community.

Last Sunday, Blitzchung, whose real name is Ng Wai Chung, appeared on a Twitch broadcast after playing in a Hearthstone tournament. Blitzchung, who lives in Hong Kong, ended his remarks by reciting the popular Hong Kong protest slogan, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.” At the time, he was wearing a gas mask and dark goggles, evoking the gear activists have worn during months of street protests.

On Saturday, Blitzchung reacted to the decision on Twitter, saying he thanked others for the attention and he would have more to say later.

Nathan “Admirable” Zamora, a commentator for the Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament, announced Thursday that he was stepping down from his role as a “caster” on the Hearthstone broadcast team.

“In Hearthstone, good strategic play involves making the right choice, even if that choice will sometimes cost you. You think about the range of possibilities from the other side,” Zamora said in a tweet. “With the hand you’re dealt, you make the best choice you can, even if the foreseeable outcomes hurt. That doesn’t mean you should make worse choices — it means do the right thing, even if you pay the price.”

Zamora is the second esports caster to step down from his position. Brian Kibler also announced his departure, saying he “will not be a smiling face on camera that tacitly endorses this decision.” Two of their colleagues released statements denouncing Blizzard’s action, but it seems they will continue to cast the Grandmasters tournament.

In another act of solidarity with Blitzchung, a user claiming to be a Blizzard employee posted a photo to Reddit showing people holding umbrellas — a reference to 2014’s Hong Kong Umbrella Movement — as they congregated around an orc statue on the campus at Blizzard’s headquarters in California.

Players are also finding ways to protest Blizzard. During a Hearthstone Collegiate Champs match, which was organized by esports company Tespa in partnership with Blizzard, players from American University held up a sign that read “Free Hong Kong, boycott Blizz.”

Casey Chambers, one of the players on the team, said that they, at minimum, expected a ban in retaliation for their actions — but they were not given one by Tespa officials. The team was scheduled to compete in another game next week, but Chambers told NPR they intend to forfeit the tournament in solidarity with Blitzchung.

“This shows Blizzard’s hypocrisy in how it treats different regions,” the team said in a statement. “They are hesitant to suppress free speech when it happens in America, on an English language stream, but will throw casters’ and players’ livelihoods under the bus if they are from Hong Kong or Taiwan.”

Over the past week, gaming fans have found creative ways to show their support for Blitzchung and Hong Kong. Some have created pro-Hong Kong fan art of Mei, a Chinese character in the Blizzard game Overwatch, in an attempt to have Blizzard ban the game in China. And a look at the official Hearthstone Twitch stream shows users have been spamming a ping pong paddle in the chat box accompanied by the sentence, “Spam this pong to free Hong Kong.”

Gamers aren’t the only ones incensed by Blitzchung’s ban. U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., tweeted statements denouncing Blizzard’s action, saying it had given in to capital influence from China. As NPR reported earlier this week, Tencent Holdings Limited, a Chinese conglomerate, owns a 5% stake in Blizzard’s parent company.

Blizzard Entertainment and Blitzchung have not responded to requests for further comments.

Paolo Zialcita is an intern on NPR’s News Desk.

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For some 40 years, women have been largely banned from attending soccer matches at Iran’s stadiums. But under pressure from FIFA, soccer’s governing body, Iranian authorities are allowing a few thousand women to watch a game Thursday at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium – in a section separate from men.

Women were permitted to buy about 3,500 tickets to watch a World Cup qualifier between the men’s teams of Iran and Cambodia.

The change comes after an Iranian woman set herself on fire and died last month, as she faced charges arising from her trying to enter the stadium to watch a match. The woman, 29-year-old soccer fan Sahar Khodayari, had dressed up as a man to try to get into the game. When security guards discerned that she was a woman, she was expelled and charged with “appearing in public without a hijab.”

The ban has been in place since 1979’s Islamic revolution, with only small groups of women allowed to attend a handful of matches in recent years.

Iranian sports journalist Raha Purbakhsh is among those who got a ticket to Thursday’s match. She told news service AFP that she last stepped into Azadi stadium about 25 years ago with her father.

“I still can’t believe it’s happening because after all these years watching every match on TV, I’m going to be able to experience everything in person,” she said. “I’ll be able to feel the stands, and closely watch the game itself.”

But some say it’s not enough. Amnesty International criticized Iran’s authorities for allotting so few tickets to women in a stadium that can seat 78,000. It’s not clear how many tickets have been made available to men.

“Iran’s decision to allow a token number of women into the stadium for tomorrow’s football match is a cynical publicity stunt by the authorities intended to whitewash their image following the global outcry over Sahar Khodayari’s tragic death,” Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director, said in a statement.

“Instead of taking half-hearted steps to address their discriminatory treatment of women who want to watch football, the Iranian authorities should lift all restrictions on women attending football matches, including domestic league games, across the country,” he said. “The international community, including world football’s governing body, FIFA, must also ensure that woman are permitted to attend all matches.”

FIFA statutes prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender. The governing body says the arrangement for Thursday’s match is a pragmatic solution as it works toward lasting change in Iran.

“It’s not just about one match,” FIFA’s head of social responsibility and education Joyce Cook told the BBC. “We’re not going to turn our eyes away from this. We’re totally focused on making sure women can attend this match on 10 October and working just as pragmatically to ensure women also can attend local matches in league football – but it’s about what follows as well. FIFA has a very firm stand – fans are equally entitled to attend matches.”

Iranian Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs Hossein-Ali Amiri said last month that some of the country’s stadiums were being prepared for the entry of women, by adding separate gates and seating.

The group Open Stadiums has long campaigned for women’s right to watch games in Iran’s arenas. The organization’s leader, who goes by the pseudonym Sara, told Reuters that many of the women who bought tickets to Thursday’s match aren’t actually soccer fans.

“[T]hey just want to break this discrimination,” she said. “For years [equal stadium access] has been a demand from the women’s rights movement in Iran and as a part of exclusion from the public spaces. It’s not just about football.”

“People are doing this just to show that if you give capacity to us, we will use it.”

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Fat Bear Week 2019 officially ended Tuesday night. And the winner is….

Number 435, or if you prefer a name, Holly.

Fat Bear Week has been an annual event for the past five years in Katmai National Park and Preserve in southwestern Alaska. The idea is to publicize and celebrate the process of bears eating as much as they can to build up crucial fat reserves in advance of winter hibernation.

Park rangers made a game out of the process – a March Madness-style bracket matching bear against bear, each with photos proving girth and inviting the public to vote on the fattest bear in each pair.

The winners move on to the next round; the losers are out.

This year’s championship round pitted Holly against number 775, Lefty.

And in the end, it was no contest.

After 12 hours of online voting, Holly had about 17,500 votes while Lefty had about 3,600.

Katmai Conservancy Media Ranger Naomi Boak says Holly earned her title.

“It was very hard to get a good picture [of Holly] out of the water,” she says, “because she was a submarine for the entire month. She did not stop fishing, except to dig a belly hole big enough for her to sleep in.”

Holly and all of this year’s 12 contestants are coastal brown bears, who forage along the Brooks river. The Alaskan waterway has one of the largest concentrations of sockeye salmon in the world, and the bears there take full advantage.

This year’s week-long competition was a huge success – there was a record total of 187,000 votes cast, more than three times last year’s total.

Along with the novelty and fun of the event, Boak and her fellow Katmai Conservancy media ranger Brooklyn White hope it builds awareness of a natural process and the need to conserve the unique wilderness area of the Brooks River.

“Not all bears have this same kind of access to these salmon resources,” White says, “and to an ecosystem that has such clean water.”

White says many ecosystems, even within Katmai, are breaking down, caused by human encroachment to warming temperatures that are putting salmon under “heat duress.”

That was especially true this year, as Alaska endured an unusually dry summer.

“Because of the drought, the salmon were really delayed” in reaching the Brooks River,” Boak says. “[T]hey stayed in small creeks and streams that were very dry.”

She says the bears stayed around those streams because of the easy fishing and didn’t arrive at the Brooks until mid-September. Normally they’re there, gorging on salmon around the first of the month.

Because of the delay, Boak says the fat bears in this year’s competition are still eating and will continue doing so right up until late this month, or early November, when hibernation usually begins.

And when it does, it’s not — as many think — as simple as the animals merely going to sleep.

“[Hibernation] is a reduction in their metabolic rate,” says White, who’s worked on the Brooks River the past four years. “[The bear’s] heart rate lowers, the activity obviously is very minimal and it truly is just their body utilizing that fat to keep this baseline going.”

If the bears don’t have adequate fat stored, some may even die during hibernation, Boak says.

That’s why the fattest bears have the best chance at survival. That means when spring rolls around, they’ll be able to emerge from their dens to continue their life cycle.

And for Holly, it’ll mean emerging as a champion.

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After yet another standout performance, star gymnast Simone Biles can now add two more signature moves that bear her name to her already lengthy list of accomplishments.

In order for a gymnast to have a move named after them, they must submit it for consideration and successfully land it at a major competition, such as the world championships or the Olympics.

On Saturday, Biles began her floor routine at the 2019 gymnastic world championships in Stuttgart, Germany by landing a triple-double, composed of a double backflip with three twists. That move will now be known as the “Biles II.”

The gymnast also nailed her double-double dismount from the balance beam. The move, which consists of a double-twisting double backflip, will now be named the “Biles.”

“I feel like I’m pretty pleased just because that’s how I train beam, and it finally felt good to go out there and hit a beam routine like I train because I feel like every time I go up to compete beam, I just bomb it,” Biles told the Olympic Channel. “So it felt really good to just nail it.”

Biles said she thinks that she can still do better, but was happy with what she accomplished at the tournament.

“My goal going into tonight was to not be great … it wasn’t to do great, but just to do well, and I feel like I accomplished that,” she said.

Biles has two other moves named after her, one on vault and the other on floor.

In addition to her individual success, Team USA came in first place in the qualifying standings with a total score of 174.205, followed by China and Russia.

Biles also came out on top in qualifying for all-around, beam and floor. She was second on vault and seventh on uneven bars.

At 22-years-old, Biles has 20 worlds medals, just three behind the record held by Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo. Her performance at this year’s world championships has the potential to make her the most decorated gymnast in the history of the competition.

More of Biles’ performance at the world competition can be seen here.

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Updated at 6:30 p.m. ET

The revered 65-year-old Sports Illustrated magazine is in a state of bedlam.

In meetings Thursday afternoon, managers told staff members that about half the newsroom would be laid off, according to two people present at the meetings.

NPR obtained a petition signed by approximately three-quarters of Sports Illustrated‘s journalists asking its new owners not to deliver control of the publication to a digital publisher named TheMaven network.

“TheMaven wants to replace top journalists in the industry with a network of Maven freelancers and bloggers, while reducing or eliminating departments that have ensured that the stories we publish and produce meet the highest standards,” the petition reads. “These plans significantly undermine our journalistic integrity, damage the reputation of this long-standing brand and negatively [affect] the economic stability of the publication.”

The new controlling executives include Ross Levinsohn, the controversial former Los Angeles Times CEO. The plan as described in the journalists’ petition appears to echo an earlier strategy by Levinsohn, who was appointed by Maven. As publisher of the Los Angeles Times and an investor in a digital outfit called True/Slant, Levinsohn embraced a strategy he termed “gravitas with scale” — a model that was based in part on unpaid contributors and meant job losses for the traditional newsroom journalists in the Tribune publishing chain.

Levinsohn and his frequent business partner James Heckman, the founder of Maven, were the subject of an earlier investigative report by NPR over their business practices. Levinsohn, Heckman and several associates met with the newsroom Thursday afternoon.

The uncertainty surrounding the magazine’s status had caused chaos for the newsroom over the previous 24 hours. Meetings that had been scheduled for midday Thursday were called off minutes before they were due to begin. On recordings heard by NPR, the magazine’s editors apologized for the uncertainty.

“We’re pushing to find out as much information as we can,” Steve Cannella, promoted just this week to be co-editor in chief, said in brief remarks to the newsroom, according to audio tapes reviewed by NPR and verified by two people present. “We know exactly how hard this is for you guys. We know the strain this is on the entire newsroom. We know that lives are at stake.”

“That’s all we can say right now. We’re really, really sorry. And you have as much information as we do,” Cannella says, on the recording. “The anger, I understand it. I’d also be angry. We just ask for a little bit of patience as we try to find out what’s going on.”

Until the meeting with Maven executives, the question of who controls the magazine had not been clear, as it has been subject to a series of major transactions in a short period of time: Meredith Corp. bought SI last year along with other Time Inc. titles and then sold the magazine in late May 2019 to a brand and marketing firm called Authentic Brands Group. Meredith, a major magazine publisher, was set to operate Sports Illustrated for two years. Several weeks later, in June, Authentic Brands struck a licensing deal cutting Meredith’s involvement short and giving Maven the right to operate the publication for up to 100 years. But that deal was only finalized on Thursday.

Meredith confirmed to NPR that Authentic Brands finished the transfer of editorial control of Sports Illustrated to Maven from Meredith, its formal owner. According to Meredith, the layoffs it announced were conducted at Maven’s behest.

“As the new licensor of … Sports Illustrated, Maven made the Sports Illustrated personnel decisions that Meredith communicated to the SI employees today,” Meredith said in a statement. “Going forward, the remaining SI employees will work at the direction and at the pleasure of Maven.”

NPR is seeking comment from Authentic Brands and Maven.

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