One of the biggest barriers in sport has just been surpassed by 29-year-old Kenyan, Sabastian Sawe. After winning the race last year he has not only defended his title but set a standard for the marathon that is on par with the first 4-minute mile.
Below are his splits for average pace per kilometer over the race. A single sub-3 kilometer is out of reach for all but a tiny minority of runners and he maintained that for an entire marathon. Even more impressive, he was getting faster as the race went on:
- 5km: 02:51
- 10km: 02:53
- 15km: 02:55
- 20km: 02:51
- Half: 02:52
- 25km: 02:53
- 30km: 02:53
- 35km: 02:47
- 40km: 02:45
- 42km: 02:40
Of course, the great Eliud Kipchoge ran a sub-2 hour marathon in 2019, but that was not in an open race and he used a team of rotating pacemakers to get to 1:59:40 in Vienna. Sawe finished in 1:59:30 to beat that mark by 10 seconds and stand alone as the quickest man ever over the distance.
Massive congratulations must also go to Ethiopia’s Yomof Kejelcha who finished second in 1:59:41, becoming the second man to officially go under the 2-hours.
Between 30 and 35 kilometers Kejelcha and Sawe separated themselves from the leading pack with a 13:54 5km split. They continued together and from 35 to 40 kilometers they went even faster, recording a 13:42 5km split.
Sawe, racing in Adidas’ new Pro Evo 3 supershoe – tipping the scales at under 100 grams -hinted ahead of Sunday’s race that a course or even world record was within reach.
With a mile to go Sawe finally managed to break clear of Kejelcha and he surged to the finish line and into the history books.
