World Record In London Baby!

Sebastian Sawe has just done something absolutely ridiculous at the London Marathon.

He only went and ran 1:59:30, becoming the first person to officially break the two-hour marathon barrier. Not in a lab. Not behind a car. Not with half of NASA pacing him. In an actual race, on the streets of London. Madness.

The previous official world record was 2:00:35, set by the late, great Kelvin Kiptum at the 2023 Chicago Marathon. Kiptum had dragged marathon running right to the edge of the impossible. Sawe has now kicked the door clean off its hinges.

And, of course, we have to mention Eliud Kipchoge — the man who first showed the world that sub-2 was humanly possible when he ran 1:59:40 in the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in 2019. That run wasn’t an official world record because it was a controlled exhibition event, but it changed the way everyone looked at the marathon. Kipchoge proved the wall could crack. Sawe has now smashed through it in race conditions.

And it wasn’t exactly a gentle Sunday jog either. Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha were locked in a proper battle over the closing miles, with Kejelcha also going under two hours in an unbelievable 1:59:41. Imagine running a sub-2 marathon and still finishing second. That is both heroic and incredibly rude.

Sawe went through halfway in 1:00:29, then casually decided the second half should be faster, running the back half in under 59 minutes like he was late for the last train home.

A new world record. A new era for marathon running. And a new reminder that some people are simply built differently.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will continue celebrating when our watch says “productive” and our knees don’t sound like a bag of crisps getting out of bed.