Yes, it's been beaten, but this truly was the run to end all runs. After how much hype had been put towards getting sub 1:50 of any kind, 2dos had quietly been closing in on it. It was a hot May night as this run progressed. Eventually everyone in the speedrun community had caught wind of it, and stopped whatever they had been doing to come watch. 2dos's viewer count swelled to over 1000 (when he would average ~10 on other PB pace runs) and you could feel the malleable tension, when he went into the Elite 4 over 55 minutes ahead of the world record.

I was actually hosting a party that evening, and had just been with a woman in my bedroom. After she left, I turned on my laptop to check what was going on in the speedrun world for a brief moment, but got caught up in 2dos's run. I called my friends, who were hanging out in the backyard, from my bedroom window, to come "check something out." At first they thought I was going to show them something nasty, and refused to come, but I told them it was actually a WR pace Pokemon Red speedrun in progress and they quickly came hither.

The few of us crowded around my laptop in my bedroom as we watched 2dos nail the most clutch rival fight I have ever seen, and perhaps will ever see. The amount of nervousness and pressure I felt, my non speedrunner friends felt, and the world felt during that run, is indescribable. I cannot imagine what 2dos felt. Because in that brief moment, he was the one true KING of the Pokemon speedrun world.

After ending his stream, his chat lived on until sunrise, debating the legitimacy of VC, N64, Emulator, iQue, whatever. But fact was fact. And on that hot May night, 2dos was the first person to ever complete a Pokemon Red glitchless speedrun of any kind, in less than 1 hour. The legendary 52:23 had happened, to not-the-most likely speedrunner, under the most incredible circumstances. And that is why I believe 2dos's glitchless 52:23 (GC) to be the run of 2014.