When Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe crossed the finish line in 1:59:30 at the TCS London Marathon last Sunday, he didn’t just become the first person to run a sub-two-hour marathon in a competitive race — he defied physics and human belief.
Sawe wasn’t even alone in his historic accomplishment, as Ethiopian debutant Yomif Kejelcha finished in 1:59:41. Only the great Eliud Kipchoge had previously finished a marathon in under two hours, but his came under controlled conditions, making what happened on London all the more remarkable.
Those weren’t the only records to fall in the British capital that day. Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa established a new mark in the women’s race of 2:15:41, capping a marathon that included new records for total applications (1,133,813), total runners (more than 59,000) and number of finishers in a marathon (59,830). Meanwhile, the wins by Switzerland’s Marcel Hug and Catherine Debrunner in the men’s and women’s elite wheelchair races, respectively, produced a rousing atmosphere for the thousands of spectators around the London course.
This, however, will be remembered most for Sawe’s milestone, one that will catapult him into international stardom, as well as to reset the limits of human endurance in marathon running that once were scarcely thought to be believable. Here is the story behind Sawe’s success.
Sawe’s Journey and the Sneaker Wars
Born and raised in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya to his maize farmer father and grandmother, Sawe’s journey to sporting immortality has been mightily impressive.
At the start of 2022 he had never run more than three miles in his life. He had previously served as a race pacemaker, but nonetheless he signed up for his first half marathon in Seville, Spain, and won the event, leading Adidas to snap him up. Two years later, he made his debut at the full 26.2-mile distance at the 2024 Valencia Marathon, also in Spain, and won in 2:02:05.
Having “The Silent Assassin,” as Sawe is now known, is a coup for Adidas, which has come to dominate the marathon world. While Nike spent a decade trying to break the two-hour marathon while seeing a decline in digital sales and appointing a new CEO (Elliott Hill), Adidas developed the new Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 over three years, weighing only 97 grams. After being given permission to test the shoe by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Adizero shoes won all major marathons in 2024, were worn by four of the top five finishers in London, and are now being sold for $5,000 on resale markets.
To counter any potential allegations of doping, Sawe has regularly kept in touch with WADA and underwent 25 drug tests before the Berlin Marathon in September, where he finished in 2:02:16.
Adidas has heavily invested in its athlete and it is now reaping the worlds. “Humanity just got faster” it tweeted after the London Marathon. It will get faster yet.
Breaking Down Sawe’s Marathon Record
Breaking the two-hour threshold in a marathon required a combination of factors: the right athlete, the right conditions and the right technology.
The latest shoes in particular worn by Sawe — weighing under 100 grams, costing around $500 and with carbon ring systems instead of traditional plates — don’t just save weight but change but how energy is returned at every step. That translates to less loss on impact and more rebound, which adds up quickly over the length of a marathon.
However, the bigger shift in these faster times appears to be from training. These shoes enable athletes to push higher intensities and recover faster, so the whole preparation model moves up another level and athletes feel a real sensation that they can progress further.
Blessed with ideal race conditions in London featuring light winds, dry weather and relatively cool temperatures, Sawe harnessed the weather to cover the first half of the course in 60:29 before completing the second half in an even quicker 59:01. Only 63 men in history had ever run a half marathon quicker (including Sawe himself at 58:05).
As he chased down the two-hour target, his splits also got faster, recording 13:54 for the five kilometers from 30-35km and 13:42 for the 35-40km stretch, marking an average pace of 2:45 per kilometer. The result a negative split marathon in under two hours — a truly astonishing feat.
To reach that level, everything must come together on race day, from race conditions and pacing to competition and perfecting the shoes to the athlete’s biomechanics. It won’t stop there either — as the tools improve and the field gets deeper, the whole environment around elite runners will only get more advanced.
“Top distance runners have finally got race day fueling perfectly dialed-up,” said Alessio Punzi, head of running and mass participation at World Athletics. “And on the shoes, the incredible evolution is accelerated by the fact that the whole sport is more popular than ever, more people are buying running shoes than ever before, such shoes have crossed into lifestyle, and customers are much more prepared than before to pay $250+ for a pair of trainers.
“Therefore, there are big financial incentives for shoe brands to produce the fastest ever race shoe: the publicity they get drives sales in the millions, sometimes tens of millions of units.”
Human vs. Robots: The Next Running Frontier
Running under two hours in a grueling long-distance race might sound like something that a machine could do — and that is exactly what is happening in some parts of the world.
One week before Saw and Kejelcha made history, two robots built by smartphone maker Honor smashed the human half-marathon world record by seven minutes in the second Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon in China. The victorious humanoid, which came equipped with an autonomous navigation system, clocked a time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds on the 13-mile course in Yizhuang, beating the human world record of 57 minutes and 20 seconds that was set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo in Lisbon only last month.
The race itself included around 20 humanoids competing alongside their human counterparts, with some robots suffering malfunctions or falls just seconds after the start.
Nonetheless, the achievements of the Honor robots were a significant improvement on those from the first edition a year ago, and it reflects the rapid innovation in humanoid technology that has accelerated even in the space of a year. It also highlights the potentially growing demand for races involving humanoids, where tech firms will be intent on clocking even more record times that leave humans in their wake.
Of course, this sort of technology is far more prevalent in China than anywhere else in the world, where 470 industrial robots are being operated for every 10,000 workers (compared to a global average of 162 according to the International Federation of Robotics) to help in hospitality, tourism or simple household tasks.
It is big business too. China’s robotics market rose to an estimated value of $47 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow 23 percent annually through 2028.
There are concerns from critics that the humanoid accomplishments could overshadow remarkable human feats if the two records are compared, but such competitions will only become more commonplace as the technology reaches a consistent level.
“Such humanoid robot competitions have been going on for a few years – the recent Beijing Half Marathon event was caught by mainstream media as the performance was faster than the WR in the men’s “human” division,” said Punzi. “While fascinating, it’s a contest between engineers, a bit like the Battlebots TV show. In China, the appetite for such tech competitions is there, but this has got nothing to do with our sport, it’s not something I am even remotely qualified to comment on.”
Our robot overlords may not be about to take over the world any time soon, but they are fast catching up (or even surpassing) human accomplishments.
Increased Marathon Running Demand
There are a lot of considerations for why marathon running demand is surging.
Primarily, it comes down to health and wellbeing. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, running was a sport that anyone could do to keep fit and they came out of it with renewed motivation.
Secondly, it is accessible and affordable — a factor fueled by the cost of living crisis. Running is free and a decent pair of trainers can last a while. For those taking it more seriously, running groups are emerging to help people meet others and improve their mental health, while apps and curated programs enable anyone to track their performance and build new goals. Fitness app Runkeeper has seen a 667 percent rise in UK registrations and Strava is continuing to add three million more users a month.
And marathons also bring benefits to destinations, boosting local economies by attracting global participants and first-time or repeat tourists and raising international awareness.
But does the demand for marathon racing increase or decrease the chances of more records being broken?
“It’s all in the financial incentives,” says Punzi. “More popularity and visibility equals more investment in shoe tech and athlete’s support, which may bring more records. Also, much like the four-minute mile record, the psychological barrier has fallen. It took decades of professionalized distance running to see the first two World Athletics legal performances under two hours; it wouldn’t be strange if more did the same before the end of the year.
“As the governing body for track and field, we have the responsibility to always make sure it remains a competition between people, rather than between technologies (hence our shoe regulations), as well as protecting clean athletes. In this respect, Sawe and Adidas are leaving no stone unturned to make sure the credibility of the sport is top-notch.”
Future for Marathon Events
The future of mass participation running events looks bright at all levels, and host cities and destinations should take note.
Only earlier this month, World Athletics outlined a strategic roadmap for the future of distance running by taking the marathon out of the World Athletics Championships program and creating a standalone World Athletics Marathon Championships from 2030. Alongside other road running distances, the marathon will no longer form part of the World Athletics Championships from 2031 onward, and the new World Marathon Championships will become an annual event, with men and women competing in alternate years. The inaugural edition could be hosted in Athens, Greece, home of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and the birth of the original marathon from the legend of Pheidippides, who in 490 BC is said to have ran 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce a victory over the Persians only to die from exhaustion.
Meanwhile, the World Athletics Road Running Championships will remain separate and continue as a distinct annual event.
Punzi believes that the announcement of the creation of standalone marathon events will have a significant impact on the global running community, reinforcing the universality and accessibility of the sport for all, while giving junior and amateur runners the inspiration to rise to the elite levels.
“We intend to provide the global running community with a flagship event where every athlete can feel they are part of a world championships,” he said. “So there will be the elites, the strong age-group runners, and the ever-growing community of recreational runners all together celebrating the sport in its spiritual home.”
After Sunday’s race, Nike simply posted: “The clock has been reset. There is no finish line.”
These achievements show us that the possibilities in running are also endless.
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