With two runners breaking the two-hour barrier in London, the men’s marathon is entering a new era where performance is increasingly shaped by more than just the athlete.
The men's marathon has entered a new era. So far, no athlete had broken two hours in an official race. And then this weekend saw not one but two runners finally breach that barrier.
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Sabastian Sawe from Kenya and Yomif Kejelcha from Ethiopia will go down in history as the first to finish the 42-kilometre race in 1:59:30 hours and 1:59:41 hours. And while running legend Eliud Kipchoge was the first to achieve the sub-2 hour marathon under controlled conditions, Sawe and Kejelcha are the first two to do so in an official race, in London.
The question is, how was this possible now? What lead to this major milestone in running history?
In elite sports, records are never an isolated event. There are so many exceptional athletes that successes like world records are unlikely to be attributed to talent alone.
After the London Marathon on Sunday, Sawe said that the atmosphere in the city, where hundreds of thousands of people came to cheer the 59,000 participants, made him feel “loved” and thus contributed to his momentum.
The cheering, the weather… and something else
Sawe also said that running with Yomif Kejelcha, who was competing in his first-ever marathon, was one of the factors that made it possible for him to run as fast.
And while the psychological state and a pacemaker clearly play a huge role, experts say it is the whole system that contributed to that led to this record.
Adam Jansen, a young runner turned race analyst on YouTube, said he thinks that three factors contributed to the results: Great weather - between 10 and 15 degrees with little wind, “insane” athleticism and technology. Both Sawe and Kejelcha were wearing a new shoe that only weighs around 97 grams.
Many runners, one shoe
Jansen noticed that four out of the first five male runners to finish the London marathon are sponsored by the same brand, Adidas. Tigist Assefa wore the same shoes as Sawe and broke the women's-only world record in the London marathon.
The emphasis on technology is echoed by Yannis Pitsiladis, Director of the Centre for Exercise Science and Medicine (CESAME) at Hong Kong Baptist University. Neither training, nutrition, nor anti-doping developments have changed sufficiently to explain a sub-two-hour marathon at this stage, he notes.
While the limits of human performance and clean sport are not fixed, “we have introduced technology that can meaningfully influence outcomes.”
A "supershoe", more super for some than for others
As research led by Pitsiladis and others have shown, so-called “supershoes” can improve the running economy by more than 6%. But the effect is uneven between athletes, with some gaining significantly more advantage than others.
That imbalance feeds a growing question in modern endurance sport, according to Pitsiladis: what, exactly, is being measured when records fall?
“If access to technology begins to decide outcomes more than physiology, preparation, and talent, then we are no longer just testing the athlete. We are testing the system around them.”
Marathon season is not over
Even athletes themselves acknowledge the shift. After his victory, Sawe said: “The win reflects the hard work behind the scenes, the support of my team, and the role of innovation in helping me push beyond limits.”
Shoe design, meanwhile, appears far from finished. What once seemed close to optimisation has continued to evolve, Jansen analysed, suggesting further performance gains may still be ahead.
Moreover, the London Marathon is not regarded as the fastest course on the circuit. Other major races routinely deliver quicker times under more controlled conditions, like Berlin, set for the end of September.
The question might not be how come marathon times can keep improving, but how much of that improvement will still be human.
