Brought in to pace

London, April 26, 2026. The Mall, the last stretch of the London Marathon. Sabastian Sawe is out front alone, and the clock over the finish still starts with a one. He crosses in 1:59:30. Nobody had ever run a marathon under two hours in a race that counts for the record books. He took 65 seconds off the world record on a Sunday morning, with thousands of people lining the street.

He wasn't the only one under the old mark. Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia, running his first marathon, came in 11 seconds later in 1:59:41. Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda was third in 2:00:28. All three beat Kelvin Kiptum's world record of 2:00:35. Afterward Sawe held up his shoe with his time written on it.

You saw that finish. What most people never heard is that four years earlier, in Seville, Sawe was put in a half marathon only to set the pace for other men. He won it. And while he was out on that course, back home in Kenya, the woman who raised him died.

Koko

Start in Barsombe, a village in Uasin Gishu County, in Kenya's Rift Valley. His father farmed maize. The house had mud walls and no electricity. He ran to school, and he lived with his grandparents during his school years. His grandmother, Esther, Koko to him, is the one who raised him.

She was his role model. He told Kenya's Nation she always pushed him to "go for nothing but the best."

Running was already in the family. His uncle, Abraham Chepkirwok, ran the 800 meters for Uganda at the 2008 Olympics, and Sawe has said he runs because of him. Sawe finished secondary school in 2015. After his exams he started training in the village, racing the 800 and the 1,500. Making a Kenyan team was another matter. He told the Nation it was "very difficult and the competition was tough."

Whatever distance was there

He went on to train in Iten, the running town in the Rift Valley highlands. Then came the day that pushed him up in distance for good. In 2019 he got to a meet in western Kenya late, and the only race still open was the 5,000. He ran it anyway and won. His uncle's advice had been simple. "I told him to run whichever distance was there," Chepkirwok told Athletics Weekly.

Then a tendon injury took him out of competition for more than a year. When he came back, it was to a new camp. In September 2020 he moved his base from Iten to Kapsabet and joined the 2 Running Club group run by Claudio Berardelli, an Italian coach who has worked in Kenya for more than two decades. Sawe has said it felt right from the start, "like now would be my time."

Brought in to pace

Seville, 2022. Sawe had never raced past 5,000 meters, and he was in the Seville Half Marathon as a pacer. By about 7K he was on his own. He didn't step off. He ran it all the way in and won in 59:02, a course record.

That same day, his grandmother died. He was out on the course in Spain when it happened. Three years later, before Berlin, he told AFP about her: "She was close to me and we talked a lot."

The rest of 2022 showed Seville was no fluke. He won the Rome-Ostia Half in 58:02. In Brussels, at the Memorial Van Damme, he ran the one hour race and covered 21,250 meters, a Kenyan record.

Then the world title. Riga, Latvia, October 1, 2023, the World Road Running Championships half marathon. Daniel Simiu Ebenyo attacked after 16K and opened a gap through the old town. Sawe reeled him in with a few hundred meters left and won in 59:10, leading a Kenyan sweep of the medals. "I always have confidence in the last kilometre," he said. In September 2024 he ran 58:05 to win in Copenhagen. He was ready to move up.

The bottle he skipped

Valencia, December 1, 2024, his first marathon. The pack went through halfway in 1:01:17. Around 36K he caught the leaders, Daniel Mateiko and Deresa Geleta, and kept going. He closed the last 5K in 14:06 and won in 2:02:05, a world lead and the second fastest debut ever, behind only Kiptum. He dedicated the win to the victims of the Valencia floods.

London, April 27, 2025. A warm, sunny day, and a lead group that included Eliud Kipchoge, Olympic champion Tamirat Tola and Kiplimo. At the aid station just past 30K, Sawe skipped his bottle and went. "It was the only bottle that I missed but I saw that it was my opportunity to push," he said. He won in 2:02:27, 70 seconds ahead of Kiplimo. Kipchoge was sixth. Two marathons, two wins.

Twenty-five tests

Here is the part fans should know. Kenyan distance running has been hit by one doping case after another, and fast times bring questions. Sawe's agent, Eric Lilot, and Berardelli came to him with an idea, and he agreed: go to the Athletics Integrity Unit, the sport's anti-doping body, and ask to be tested more. A lot more.

In the two months before the 2025 Berlin Marathon, the AIU tested him 25 times out of competition, most of them blood and urine. Some testers showed up early in the morning before long runs. One day they came twice. Adidas, his sponsor, paid $50,000 to cover it. He passed every test. Before Berlin he had said why he wanted it: "I am tired of reading what people write in the press and on social media."

Berlin, September 21, 2025. He asked for seven pacemakers and went after the record. At 15K he was on 2:00:32 pace, and he went through halfway in 60:16. Then the heat came in, with a record dew point for Berlin. The pacers were gone early, and he ran alone from before 30K, slowing a little each 5K but never cracking. He won in 2:02:16, almost four minutes ahead of Japan's Akira Akasaki. "It's only his third marathon, and with three wins we can't complain," Berardelli said.

For 2026 the program kept going: about 25 more tests, spread across the whole year, with no notice. The samples are stored for 10 years so they can be tested again as methods improve. The day after London, he told reporters why it matters to him.

"Doping has become a cancer in my country."

Sabastian Sawe, to reporters in London the day after his world record, April 27, 2026, as reported by the Associated Press

59:01

He started preparing for London in December. In the last six weeks, Berardelli said, Sawe averaged more than 200 kilometers a week and peaked at 241. On race morning he had two slices of bread with honey, and tea. On his feet was the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, about 97 grams a shoe.

The weather was right: mostly sunny, low 60s. Six men ran together early: Sawe, Kejelcha, Kiplimo, Tola, Amos Kipruto and Deresa Geleta. They went through 5K in 14:14 and halfway in 1:00:29, a touch slower than two-hour pace. Then the race started. After 30K it was down to Sawe and Kejelcha. They ran 30K to 35K in 13:54 and the next 5K in 13:42. In the last two kilometers Sawe left Kejelcha behind and ran the Mall by himself. His second half took 59:01.

Fans remember the other 1:59. Kipchoge ran 1:59:40 in Vienna in 2019, but that was a special event built for one man, on a loop of about six miles, with 41 pacemakers rotating in and out. It was never eligible as a record. Sawe ran 10 seconds faster in an open race on the streets of London. And the record he broke belonged to Kiptum, who ran 2:00:35 in Chicago in 2023 and died in a car crash in Kenya the next year, at 24.

"What comes today is not for me alone, but for all of us today in London."

Sabastian Sawe, after winning the London Marathon, April 26, 2026, as reported by the Associated Press

He hadn't even gone in thinking about the clock. "To tell you the truth, no one expected it because my target was to win again," he told the Nation.

"In over two decades of coaching in Kenya, I have not seen such a complete athlete."

Claudio Berardelli, Sawe's coach, as reported by Citizen Digital on Sawe's return to Kenya, April 30, 2026

Home

Three days after the race, his plane landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi and got a water cannon salute. Berlin was supposed to be next, a title defense on September 27. On August 27 he posted on Instagram: "It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that I am forced to withdraw from the Berlin Marathon due to injury." He added that he had been looking forward to "achieving something special on the streets of Berlin."

His agent told LetsRun it was a slight stress fracture in his right tibia. Sawe had felt discomfort during a physio session, and an MRI found it. No fall marathon. The target is a marathon in spring 2027. For now, Lilot said, he would step away from running, leave the camp in Kapsabet and spend time at home with his family.

The honors still came. On September 24, at Adidas headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, he was inducted into the company's Walk of Fame with Kejelcha. "I never imagined that at any point in my career or in my life, I would one day be inducted into a Walk of Fame," he wrote. On October 6, World Athletics named him one of 10 nominees for men's World Athlete of the Year.

The people who know him best don't talk about the shoes or the splits. He is a father of three boys, and at camp he shares a room. His uncle, the man he says he runs because of, put it like this.

"If he is in camp, he doesn't step out even to go to the centre. When he leaves training, he goes home."

Abraham Chepkirwok, Sawe's uncle, to Athletics Weekly, 2026

This fall there was no training to leave. So he went home anyway, to his wife and his boys. Koko told him to go for nothing but the best, and he went and got it. The first man under two hours in a race that counts once lined up in Seville as somebody else's pacer.

GAMECHANGER^™

Reporting draws on the Associated Press, NPR, World Athletics, the Nation (Kenya), The Star (Kenya), Citizen Digital, AFP, Al Jazeera, The Telegraph, Sky News, Track & Field News, Athletics Weekly, LetsRun, Pulse Kenya, Marathon Handbook, World Marathon Majors and the BMW Berlin Marathon.

Sources (38)

Associated Press via KSAT: Sawe wins London Marathon in world record time, first under two hours · NPR via WLRN: Kenya's Sabastian Sawe is first person to run sub-2-hour marathon · World Athletics: Sawe breaks two hours, Assefa sets world record in London · Associated Press via KSAT: Record breaker says he underwent strict testing regime · Runner's World South Africa: The stats behind Sawe's 1:59:30 · The Star (Kenya): Sawe says he was confident in his form · Nation (Kenya): Sawe, 'I did not know about Yomif Kejelcha' · Nation (Kenya): The shoes behind the sub-two feat · Nation (Kenya): Sabastian Sawe, the rising king of marathon · The Telegraph via Yahoo Sports: The secrets of Sawe's marathon world record · Sky News via Radio X: From super shoes to bread with honey · Citizen Digital: Sawe flies back to hero's welcome · Associated Press via CTV News: Kenya gives a hero's welcome to Sawe · AFP via Citizen Digital: Sawe targets Berlin record to salute Kipchoge and Kiptum · Track & Field News: Sawe's name now synonymous with history · Athletics Weekly: Why Sabastian Sawe is Kenya's 'Shujaa' · Athletics Weekly: Sub-two testing times for Sabastian Sawe · LetsRun: How Sawe convinced the AIU to test him more · Pulse Kenya: Sawe inducted at Adidas, from humble beginnings · The Star (Kenya): Who is world record holder Sabastian Sawe · Marathon Handbook: Who is Sabastian Sawe? · World Athletics: Riga 23 men's half marathon report · World Athletics: Sawe wins on Valencia Marathon debut · AFP via EWN: Kenya's Sawe wins men's London Marathon 2025 · Track & Field News: London Marathon men, Sawe surge settled it · World Athletics: Berlin Marathon 2025 report · Track & Field News: Berlin Marathon, Sawe's bold gambit scuppered by weather · LetsRun: Sawe stays perfect at 26.2 by winning Berlin · World Marathon Majors: Sawe sets world lead in searing Berlin heat · Al Jazeera: Sawe withdraws from Berlin Marathon · LetsRun: Sawe pulled out of Berlin due to tibial stress fracture · BMW Berlin Marathon: Sawe withdraws · Marathon Handbook: Sawe and Kejelcha join the Adidas Walk of Fame · World Athletics: Nominees announced for World Athlete of the Year 2026 · Al Jazeera: Sawe is world's first man to run a sub-two-hour marathon · Citizen Digital: Sawe takes bold anti-doping step ahead of Berlin Marathon · The Londoner: The story behind the shoe that won the London Marathon · Marathon Handbook: Everything it took to run a marathon under two hours