Sabastian Sawe on his marathon world record: 'The achievement moves me into another world'

Sabastian Sawe and Tigst Assefa both broke world records at the London Marathon. Alex Davidson / Getty Images Share articleSabastian Sawe and Tigst Assefa shocked the world, but not themselves, when they broke their world records at the London Marathon on Sunday. Sawe completed the race in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds to become the first to run under two hours in a legal race. Just minutes before, Assefa crossed the line in 2:15:41, taking nine seconds off her women’s-only world record set in the same event last year. This made for the greatest day in marathon history, especially considering 26.2-mile debutant Yomif Kejelcha finished in 1:59:36, which meant, incredibly, two men broke two hours. Meanwhile, Assefa’s fast finish meant she beat Hellen Obiri and Joyciline Jepkosgei, who made up the podium for the first instance of three women running 2:15-something in the same marathon. The Athletic spoke with Sawe and Assefa the following morning. This is their world records in their own words. Sawe realised the time he was going to run in the “last minute” of the race. “It was so competitive. Kejelcha was back-to-back with me,” he says. The Ethiopian stuck with Sawe’s surge at 30km, as he pushed the pace to drop consecutive 5km splits of 13:54 and 13:42 — averaging 4:24 per mile and bringing him well under the two-hour threshold. “We were just patrolling each other,” he says of Kejelcha. “What we did, it’s because of him. He tried his best, and I tried my best, and we pushed to our limits. Sometimes we run with strong guys, have that strong feeling, and it makes the results good.” Sawe knows he has transcended the sport. “I’m feeling so special, the achievement moves me into another world. I’m so happy,” he says. The Kenyan speaks softly and quietly, sometimes taking long pauses before answering. This bashfulness is a contrast to how dominant and assured he races, having won all four marathons he has competed in. “I started running back in primary school,” he says of his earliest sporting memories. “I mostly focused on studies first but, in my mind, I knew one day I would be a champion. And it’s true, finally.” Not that he celebrated like one. Dinner, rather humbly, was chicken and rice, washed down with water. That kind of discipline is what brought him to this level in the first place. He runs, on average, 124 miles (200km) per week. “I had good preparation and I took my time to understand my training,” he says. “Also, I kept to my programme well, which helped a lot in this performance, for me running (and winning) four marathons, having that good time and maintaining it.” The “good time” he references is the three 2:02s clocked to win in London and Berlin (both in 2025) and on debut in Valencia in December 2024. Only Eliud Kipchoge has more sub-2:03 marathon performances. Sawe credits his training group for helping him break two hours. “My training partners are strong guys. Amos Kipruto was fourth (in London, 2:01:39), Benson Kipruto was third in Boston. Emmanuel Wanyonyi, a track athlete, is an 800m Olympic champion.” He takes a while to go through the rest of the group: “Phanuel Koech, Lilian Kasait, Margaret Chelimo, Marion Kibor,” he says, name-checking three Kenyans who have won medals at global championships, and Koech, the under-20 world record holder for 1,500m. “It’s a big group. We train together, we are in one camp, and that helps a lot for what we achieve,” he says. At what point in his build-up did Sawe think he was ready to test the world record? “It was the last long run, I ran very well and realised I was in good shape,” he says. Before last year’s London Marathon, he ran 2:08 and 2:04 in 40km runs. As the magnitude of his achievement sinks in, Sawe is already looking to the future. “Anything is possible, it’s a matter of time,” is his answer to the possibility of running 1:58 or faster. “My plan, first of all, is to keep training,” he says. Which Fall marathon he races next is currently undecided, though Berlin (September) and Chicago (October) are the obvious choices as they are even quicker courses than London. “To run an Olympic Games. Running an Olympics… and winning, makes you reach another level.” “Even from when she was in childhood, she thought she was strong,” coach Gemedo Dedofo says of Assefa, acting as translator. “Her body told her that one day she would do something special.” In her youth, Assefa showed talent on the track, running inside two minutes for 800m and representing Ethiopia at international age-group levels. A two-year break was enforced because of a “big Achilles injury,” Dedofo says, before she moved to the roads. “She suffered a lot between the track and competing in a marathon — long years of injury,” her coach adds. Those hard years have made her resilient and intuitive. “There isn’t someone like Tigst in this world, who can read their body, understand their body,” says Dedofo. By winning on Sunday, she became the first woman since Brigid Kosgei in 2019 and 2020 to claim back-to-back London victories. She trains as part of Dedofo’s group in Ethiopia, which is brimming with talent: 2023 World Championship marathon gold medallist Amane Beriso; Fotyen Tesfay, who is second on the all-time list after her 2:10:51 run in Barcelona this February; Tamirat Tola, the 2024 Olympic marathon champion. Kejelcha is in that group, too. “He’s very hard, but very, very good,” Assefa says of Dedofo and his coaching. “He has taught me a lot, he gives me good training, he manages me.” Dedofo told her she could win and better her own world record. In the post-race press conference, she spoke of how much it mattered to win with a sprint finish. At the past two global championships, in Paris and in Tokyo, she had been out-kicked to the line and made to settle for silver. “I knew I’d done the training,” she said in that press conference, adding that it was “special” because “I’d been working on my speed.” She found the extra gear needed despite a fast start — they split 66:12 at halfway, a typical tactic of Assefa’s to get out hard — and let Obiri take over at the front once the pacemakers dropped out, sitting in to time her sprint. Dedofo remembers the Assefa he first met in the mid-2010s. “When she came to the roads, she was a little bit afraid. But her husband told her she can do it. Immediately when she started training, she looked very good, really fresh — better than everyone else.” The “plan” had been to go straight to the marathon, but they had to start Assefa on shorter road distances because of her Achilles problems. A debut of 2:34:01 in Saudi Arabia four years ago was “very tough,” Dedofo says. “She was not ready for that one; she did not train fully. But she finished.” Fast forward six months and five races — all of which Assefa won — and the Ethiopian produced a storming 2:15:37 to claim her first major marathon win in Berlin. Then she went back the following year (2023) and ran 2:11:53 to shatter Kosgei’s record by two minutes and 11 seconds. Assefa has not looked back since. With Sawe only 31 and Assefa 29, both have yet to reach their peak. The pair could return next year to attempt a London three-peat, something nobody has done in the men’s or women’s race for nearly three decades, since Dionicio Ceron (1994 to 1996) and Katrin Dorre-Heining (1992 to 1994). Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms