{"id":418378,"date":"2026-04-26T12:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T12:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/418378\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T12:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T12:22:07","slug":"sawe-becomes-first-man-to-break-two-hour-mark-in-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/418378\/","title":{"rendered":"Sawe becomes first man to break two-hour mark in marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sabastian Sawe has won the London Marathon in a world record time, becoming the first person in history to officially record a sub-two-hour race.<\/p>\n

The Kenyan won the race 12 months ago and successfully defended his title but more importantly he crossed the finish line in a time of one hour 59 minutes and 30 seconds.<\/p>\n

His incredible run wiped 65 seconds off the previous record held by the late Kelvin Kiptum, who did so at the 2023 Chicago Marathon.<\/p>\n

Sawe’s time is 10 seconds quicker than Eliud Kipchoge\u2019s record in 2019 \u2013 which was not recognised as official because it was not in open competition and he was assisted by pacemakers.<\/p>\n

Ireland’s Peter Lynch produced a super run, breaking his own Irish record to come home ninth in 2:06.08.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old’s previous best was 2:09:36. He has broken Fearghal Curtin’s national record (2:07:54) which was set last October in South Korea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Tigst
\nTigst Assefa celebrates at the finish line<\/p>\n

Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia \u200cstayed on Sawe’s \u2060heels over much of the 42.195-kilometre course before fading down the final stretch to take second in his marathon debut with 1:59.41, while Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda took the bronze in 2:02.28.<\/p>\n

Kiptum died in a \u200ccar crash in 2024<\/a> in Kenya when he was just 24 years old.<\/p>\n

Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia also \u2060broke her own women’s only world record in winning the women’s race.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old \u200cpulled \u2060away from Kenyans Hellen Obiri and Joyciline Jepkosgei down the home stretch to \u200ccross the finish line in \u2060two hours \u200c15 minutes and 41 seconds, beating \u2060the \u200crecord of 2:15.50 she set last year \u2060in London.<\/p>\n

Obiri was second \u2060in 2:15.53, while Jepkosgei took the bronze in 2:15.55.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sabastian Sawe has won the London Marathon in a world record time, becoming the first person in history…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-418378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}