SAWE, KEJELCHA BREAK TWO-HOUR BARRIER AT TCS LONDON MARATHON

SAWE, KEJELCHA BREAK TWO-HOUR BARRIER AT TCS LONDON MARATHON
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission. 

(26-Apr) — Nearly 72 years after Roger Banister became the first man to break four minutes for the mile at the Iffley Road Track in Oxford, Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe and Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha became the first men to run under two hours for a standard marathon held under World Athletics rules*.  Sawe, 31, and Kejelcha, 28, finished first and second at this morning’s TCS London Marathon in 1:59:30 and 1:59:41, respectively.  They smashed the late Kelvin Kiptum’s 2023 world record of 2:00:35 set at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, and Kejelcha ran (by far) the fastest debut marathon in history.  Third-place Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda also finished under Kiptum’s record, clocking 2:00:28.

Moreover, Sawe successfully defended his title.

“I am so happy, it is a day to remember for me,” Sawe told the race’s media team.  “We started the race well, and as I approached the end of finishing the race, I was feeling strong. Reaching the finish line, I saw the time, and I was so excited to run a world record today.”

Remarkably, the race’s fastest running came in the second half.  The first three 5-kilometer segments were covered in 14:14, 14:21, and 14:35, respectively.  That’s fast running for sure, but “only” projected a 2:01:26 finish, about a minute outside of Kiptum’s record.  Sawe, Kejelcha, Kiplimo, Kenya’s Amos Kipruto, and Ethiopia’s Deresa Geleta and Tamirat Tola were all in the lead pack.

“They clearly had their Weetabix this morning,” said British Olympian Chris Thompson on the race’s international broadcast.

The first injection of pace came in the next 5-kilometer segment.  With pacemaker Oscar Chelimo of Uganda on the front, the top-6 athletes ran 14:11 from 15 to 20 kilometers, then went through halfway in 1:00:29.  Nobody dropped off the pace, and the same six men remained in contention.  No doubt, the sunny, cool conditions were helping all the athletes.

About halfway between 25 and 30 kilometers, Chelimo retired, leaving the contenders to fight for the win.  A fracture developed in the lead group just before 30-K (1:26:03). Sawe and Kejelcha led Kiplimo by two seconds, and Kipruto, Geleta, and Tola drifted back. That segment wasn’t particularly fast (14:22), but the next two were incredible.  Sawe and Kejelcha blasted through the 5 kilometers from 30 to 35-K in 13:54, and then from 35 to 40-K in eye-popping 13:42 (27:36 from 30 to 40-K).  That put the leading pair on pace to go under two hours, but who would win?

At the Paris Marathon earlier this month, Italy’s Yemaneberhan Crippa ran 6:01 from 40-K to the finish line, the fastest final marathon segment ever.

Until today.

Sawe ran 5:51 to Kejelcha’s 6:02, and that was the difference.  The race did not come down to a sprint.  Instead, Sawe gently pulled away in the final kilometer to get a glorious win on The Mall, some 90 kilometers southeast of where Banister had made history in 1954.  He ran the second half in 59:01.

“I think I was well prepared because coming to London for the second time was so important to me, and that is why I prepared well for it,” Sawe explained.

Under the prize-money and bonus system put in place by race organizers, Sawe earned USD 355,000, including USD 150,000 for setting a new world record.  Kejelcha earned USD 180,000, and Kiplimo got USD 172,500.  All three men will earn much more than those “above the table” totals because the race paid them appearance fees (and likely private place bonuses), and their kit sponsors (adidas for Sawe and Kejelcha, and Nike for Kiplimo) typically pay bonuses for exceptional performances like these.

Down the finish order, Kipruto ran 2:01:39 for fourth place, Tola 2:02:59 for fifth, and Geleta 2:03:23 for sixth.  Irishman Peter Lynch ran a national record 2:06:08 in ninth place, and the top British finisher– and the winner of the U.K. Athletics national title– was Mahamed Mahamed in tenth place in 2:06:14.

The women’s race also set a world record (for a women-only race) and saw Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa successfully defend her title.  Assefa, 29, the 2024 Olympic Marathon silver medalist, ran a brilliant tactical race against rivals Hellen Obiri and Joyciline Jepkosgei, both of Kenya.  Behind excellent pacemaking by Ethiopia’s Tsige Gebreselama and Kenya’s Miriam Chebet, the trio hit halfway in 1:06:12, well under world record pace and also on schedule to break Paula Radcliffe’s 2:15:25 course record set in a mixed-gender format in 2003.

Unlike in the men’s race, the women slowed down in the second half.  The first four 5-kilometer segments went quickly in 15:39, 15:24, 15:56, and 15:42, respectively, but after that, they would not run sub-16:00 again.  Instead, they took turns at the lead and traded small surges, testing each other.  None of those moves was hard enough to break up the race.

Up to the 40-K mark, the three women recorded identical split times.  Something had to give, and Assefa steadily ramped up her speed in the final kilometer to ease away from her challengers.  When she made the final right-hand turn onto The Mall, both Obiri and Jepkosgei were too far back to catch up.  Squeezing out the last bit of pace she had left, she managed to trim her women-only world record from last year’s race by nine seconds, clocking 2:15:41.  Radcliffe’s absolute race record was not broken.

“I screamed when I finished because I knew I was breaking the world record,” Assefa told the race’s media team.  “I felt much healthier today and have worked really hard on my speed, and all my training has paid off.  Thank you to God for this fantastic competition, and I wanted to thank my opponents, many of whom are my friends. They’ve done great and well done!”

Obiri, running her first marathon with pacemakers, set a huge personal best of 2:15:53. Jepkosgei, who won this race in 2021, finished third in 2:15:55. It was her fifth time making the podium in London.

Assefa earned USD 280,000 in prize money and publicly-reported time bonuses.  Obiri earned USD 105,000 and Jepkosgei USD 97,500.  All three athletes also received appearance fees and likely personal bonuses.

The top British athlete was Eilish McColgan, in 2:24:51, in seventh place, slightly slower than her personal best of 2:24:25 from this race last year.  Behind her was the 2025 World Athletics Championships bronze medalist, Julia Paternain, in a personal best of 2:25:47. Paternain, who represents Uruguay and was born in Mexico, was raised in Great Britain, and her participation was heavily promoted by race organizers.  Her mark was a national record.

In the professional wheelchair races, Switzerland’s Marcel Hug rebounded from his Boston Marathon win last Monday and collected his eighth TCS London Marathon winner’s trophy in 1:24:13. His margin of victory was 4:33.

“This guy is just unbeatable,” said commentator Hannah England on the race broadcast.

Another Swiss athlete, Catherine Debrunner, won a tightly contested women’s wheelchair race against American Tatyana McFadden.  The pair pushed most of the race together, and it wasn’t until the final set of turns before The Mall that Debrunner got away.  She was clocked at 1:38:29, to McFadden’s 1:38:34. Boston Marathon winner Eden Rainbow-Cooper, who is British, finished a distant 11th in 1:51:12.

Both wheelchair winners earned USD 55,000 in prize money, the same as Sawe and Assefa.

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*Eliud Kipchoge ran 1:59:41 in an exhibition marathon in Vienna on October 12, 2019, which was not held under World Athletics rules

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