I don’t know whether this story should be about how impossibly fast marathoners have become, what was in the water at the London Marathon this year, or Sabastian Sawe. Actually, you know what? You're right—it should be about Sabastian Sawe and the real sub-2-hour marathon. 

As much as we love the philosopher GOAT, Eliud Kipchoge, his 2019 sub-2 marathon mark was set under curated conditions by his sponsor Nike and thus wasn’t a legal world record. If anything, it took away the allure of one of the biggest long-standing barriers in sports, but it’s all lost to history now—Sawe knocked off records official and unofficial at once.

Sawe, from Kenya, set the WR at 1:59:30, which is astonishingly 65 seconds faster than the previous record, held by the late Kelvin Kiptum, who died tragically in a car accident in 2024 at the peak of his career. Kipchoge held the WR before that. 2nd and 3rd in this year’s London Marathon were Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha in 1:59:41, and Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo ran 2:00:28. All three runners ran faster than Kiptum’s previous WR. 

Kejelcha was dropped around mile 24. He said about it, “My body stopped. I tried to push, but my legs were done.” He didn’t slow much, but it was enough for Sawe to pull ahead, who would end up winning around $1 million from rewards associated with the record.

While the London Marathon has always been a fast course, long distance times have dropped dramatically since the invention of “super shoes” over the course of the last decade, which may account for several minutes of dropped time over the course of a marathon compared to previous decades when they weren’t available.

Sawe said after the race, “I am feeling good, I am so happy, it is a day to remember. I have shown that nothing is not possible.”