Borderlands 2 player who spent 9 months trying to finish the game without getting hit was beaten to the punch 10 hours before finally accomplishing his goal

Borderlands 2.

Hitless gaming pro Heyblasty put over 800 hours into beating Borderlands 2 without taking damage, and less than a day before he finally managed his goal, challenge run streamer darksmoke11 did it first. 

"Yeah, darksmoke11 got the run less than a day before me," Heyblasty notes in a Reddit thread, though darksmoke11 only started the Sisyphean undertaking about two months ago after being motivated by Heyblasty's initial commitment to it, and ended up using a similar overall route. But it was never a real competition.