History by stealth. It was quick – it had been from the start – but no one had any inkling that one of the greatest ever sporting feats was even a possibility until just a mile of the 2026 London Marathon remained and a predicted finish time flashed up on screen. That the projection began with the number one was sufficient to make hairs stand on end.
We already knew Sabastian Sawe was talented. The Kenyan had won all three of his previous career marathons prior to this – including in London last year – and was the favourite to triumph again on Sunday. But, for so much of this race, victory was not even guaranteed. He had last year’s Ugandan second-placed finisher Jacob Kiplimo attempting to hang onto his super shoes and Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha – in the process of completing the most spectacular debut marathon in history – for company.
So Sawe simply did what was required: he sped up. The further he went, the quicker he ran. Every step over the final few miles faster than the last. By the time he entered The Mall, Kejelcha had finally been dropped and Sawe was sprinting to a feat far beyond mere victory in one race. He was achieving the unthinkable as the first man ever to run a legal marathon in less than two hours. No carefully manicured course, wind-shielding or rotating pacemakers that helped Eliud Kipchoge dip under that mark in an unofficial time trial in 2019. This was legit.
One hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds. Put it in capital letters: ONE HOUR, FIFTY-NINE MINUTES AND THIRTY SECONDS. Stick with the bare numerals: 1:59.30. It does not matter what way you look at it, here was the definition of greatness – an athletic achievement to rank alongside Roger Bannister’s first sub-four-minute mile.
Remarkably, there was then more. Just 11 seconds behind him followed Kejelcha, a veteran on the track but a marathon novice, also breaking that mythical two-hour barrier. His finishing time of 1:59.41 is ludicrously destined to be a footnote. So, too, that of Kiplimo, who clocked 2:00.28, which would have been a world record without the extraordinary exploits of the men who finished in front of him.
But the men’s marathon no longer deals in times that begin with the number two. We are in the era of the one.
“They said it could not be done,” said Steve Cram commentating on the BBC over pictures that will be beamed worldwide forevermore. “I’ve never seen anything like that. That, you would say, is unbelievable – but we have just seen it happen. I’m lost for words.”
Let us promptly deal with the two elephants in the room. Sawe hails from Kenya, a country with a diabolical doping record and more than 140 athletes currently suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for a range of offences. His coach, Claudio Berardelli, has trained a number of those banned athletes.
Fully aware of the fingers that will be pointed at him throughout his career, Sawe and his team last year approached the AIU – who head up anti-doping in the sport – and asked them to test him as much as possible.
In the two months before last September’s Berlin Marathon, Sawe was tested 25 times – a mixture of blood and urine samples, sometimes taken multiple times per day. It is, of course, impossible for any athlete to prove a negative. But Sawe is at least attempting to show that he is clean.
The other factor is the shoes, in this case Adidas’ new Pro Evo 3, each of which weighs a mind-boggling 97 grams. The advent of carbon fibre and hyper-responsive foam has forever changed what was deemed feasible. It is no wonder Sawe held one of his shoes in his hand throughout post-race media duties, indebted as he is to be running in the super shoe era.
Sawe is not an orator. Before the race, his agent referred to him as a “silent assassin”. Afterwards, the new world record holder simply said it was a “good result”, thanking the London crowd for their support and suggesting his achievement showed “there is a time for everyone”.
This is his. He will forever be the first man to make the impossible possible. And then 11 seconds later another one came along. Truly extraordinary.
