“A large number of individuals would argue that [the sub two] is such an anomaly that it has to be drug induced,” he told us. “The sub two project was devised because in the last five years most of my work has been focused on dealing with the drugs in sport problem. Basically, drug usage in sport is more pervasive than the public thought. We in the field knew.

“So for me, I’ve been trying to get organisations like the World Anti-Doping Agency and the IOC to think of alternatives to drugs; to give athletes access to the technology that guys have in laboratories that really do work. If we don’t do that and provide that alternative to doping we’re going to lose that fight against drugs. It’s easier to go down the drug route.

“What we want to do is take a sport which recently has evidence of a serious doping problem – marathon running is clearly one of those – and see if we can come up with a scientific way to beat those guys and do it cleanly and sell on the technology.”

“Top athletes go to famous clinics around the world where it’s considered they should go, and what they’re getting in return is actually quackery. But that’s the best we have at the moment because sports medicine, which is the Mickey Mouse of the field of medicine, is not evidence based. As much as I hate to admit that. Which means that they also are required to up their game. When those fields become more evidence based they’ll get more athletes.

“Whatever the question is in sports science or sports medicine, you want to tackle that question in a multi-disciplinary way; using sociologists, sports psychologists, bio-mechanists, engineers. Bring them all together and finance them well.

“The most expensive athletes, the ones who get paid more in a week than we get paid in a year don’t care about sports science. What does that tell us? They don’t think we have any impact.”

“There’s a realisation that the field exists but if you go to Jamaica and Kenya and Ethiopia where I go, they really don’t care. They don’t care about sports scientists. Most football teams in the UK also don’t care. They take on sports science for the FA grants. The most expensive athletes, the ones who get paid more in a week than we get paid in a year don’t care about us. What does that tell us? They don’t think we have any impact.”

And a sub-two marathon would change that by providing proof of the impact?

Pitsiladis believes so. “I’m very excited about the project and the reason is that it’s got some really strong legacy messages.”

He believes that once it can be proven that the quickest way to reach world class standard is through scientific training and evidence, doping can be steadily eliminated. As long as tests improve in order to catch and punish the remaining offenders.

“We need to come up with better anti-doping tests that really work, because currently they do not work.”

“Athletes don’t care about us,” he said. “They want the quickest way to get to the top. That’s drugs. We need a quicker way to get there. And we need protection of the clean athlete. We need to come up with better anti-doping tests that really work, because currently they do not work.

“Currently the sole funding I have in my laboratory today is for anti-doping testing, using technology to identify the next generation of anti-doping tests. I’m probably one of the labs that gets the most funding in this area and that funding only allows me to have one student working for me a year. With that level of funding what are we going to be able to?

“We need thinking outside of the box. We advocate it. Let’s provide the sports scientists, the discipline as a whole across the UK with the resources they require. Provide them with access to research access funding. Support this kind of research so we can give real alternatives to doping to athletes and help promote physical activity.”

When you next see an attempt to break the sub-two marathon then, you’ll know that this is no novelty. Nike’s ‘Breaking2’ project may be a marketing stunt, but it’s a marketing stunt that could shape the future of doping in athletics and transform the progression of modern sport.

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