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\n Sebastian Sawe from Kenya crosses the finish line to win the men’s race at the London Marathon in London, Sunday, April 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ian Walton\/AP<\/p>\n
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Ian Walton\/AP<\/p>\n
LONDON \u2014 Sabastian Sawe of Kenya has become the first person to break the fabled 2-hour barrier in the marathon.<\/p>\n
In a huge moment in sports history, Sawe smashed the men’s world record by 65 seconds in winning the London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The second-place finisher, Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia, also dipped under 2 hours by crossing the line in 1:59:41 in his first-ever marathon, while Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda broke the previous world-record time \u2014 set by Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum in Chicago in 2023 \u2014 by seven seconds in finishing in 2:00:28.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Sawe, who retained his title in London, thanked the huge crowds who lined the streets of the British capital to cheer him on.<\/p>\n
“What comes today is not for me alone,” Sawe said, “but for all of us today in London.”<\/p>\n
In an exhilarating sight, Sawe ran the second half of the marathon in 59 minutes and 1 second, pulling clear with Kejelcha after 30 kilometers and then making his solo break in the final two kilometers as he sprinted along the finish on The Mall.<\/p>\n
A record was also set in the women’s race, with Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa pulling away with about 500 meters remaining to win in 2:15:41 to defend the title in the fastest-ever time in a women’s-only marathon.<\/p>\n
However, it was 16 seconds slower than the course record set by Paula Radcliffe in 2003 when it was a mixed race.<\/p>\n
In the wheelchair races, there was a Swiss double with Marcel Hug powering to a sixth straight men’s title \u2013 and eighth in total \u2013 and Catherine Debrunner beating Tatyana McFadden in a close finish to defend the title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sebastian Sawe from Kenya crosses the finish line to win the men’s race at the London Marathon in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99],"class_list":{"0":"post-607535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}