Sebastian Sawe smashes two-hour barrier in marathon’s Roger Bannister second | EUROtoday

Sabastian Sawe didn’t rule out a course and even world file when requested about his probabilities at this yr’s London Marathon.

The Kenyan gained final yr’s version in two hours, two minutes and 27 seconds, and informed a press convention he felt the late Kelvin Kiptum’s three-year-old course file of two hours, one minute and 25 seconds may very well be overwhelmed.

And requested if his sneakers, the Adidas Pro Evo 3s, had been in fact – and even world – file high quality, the 29-year-old replied, merely: “Yep.”

His important rival is Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, the Chicago Marathon winner and final yr’s London runner-up.

The stacked males’s area is lacking Briton Emile Cairess, who positioned third in 2024 and fourth at that summer season’s Olympics and was focusing on Mo Farah’s British file earlier than he was pressured to withdraw as a result of a calf concern.

Great Britain will nonetheless be nicely represented by the likes of Mahamed Mahamed, the fourth-fastest British man over the space, his Paris 2024 Olympic team-mate Phil Sesemann, and Patrick Dever, all of whom have set extra modest targets.

Alex Yee, the 2024 Olympic gold medallist in triathlon, made his aggressive marathon debut final yr in London and returns for this version as a pacemaker.

Ethiopian Tigst Assefa will goal her personal women-only world file when she makes an attempt to defend her personal London crown.

The 29-year-old set a brand new normal on the identical occasion final yr, beating the earlier world file by 26 seconds in two hours, quarter-hour and 50 seconds.

Assefa, whose competitors consists of Britons Eilish McColgan and Jess Warner-Judd, in addition to Kenyan Hellen Obiri, who gained the New York Marathon, has been pleasantly stunned by her personal type.

She informed a press convention: “My training has gone well, it has been better, even, than my preparation last year, so I think it is possible to beat the record I set last year.”

McColgan made her delayed London debut final yr and was enamoured with the environment, which she mentioned “blew all my expectations out of the water” and added: “It was the toughest race I’ve ever done in my life.

“I didn’t even know how I was putting one foot in front of the other after 20 miles, but I was somehow moving forward in some sort of manner, and without the crowds I think that would have been a hell of a lot harder.”