On Sunday, Sabastian Sawe won the 2026 London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds, becoming the first human being to complete 26.2 miles in a sanctioned race in less than two hours. The astonishing feat, also achieved by second-place finisher Yomif Kejelcha, who ran 1:59:41, comes roughly a decade since Nike announced its “moonshot” project of helping humanity break the two-hour marathon barrier.
Except neither Kenya’s Sawe nor Ethiopia’s Kejelcha are sponsored by Nike. They made history wearing Adidas.
The record run on Sunday still owes a debt to Nike, whose Breaking 2 project, launched in 2016, was the impetus for the development of carbon fiber running shoes, an innovation that revolutionized elite running and has been partly responsible for the pace of record-breaking in major marathons over the last decade.
Along the way, there have been fast times, big doping busts and fierce corporate competition for the fastest humans in history. Below is a condensed timeline of distance running’s supershoe era and the quest for running a marathon in less than two hours.
December 2016 — Breaking 2 Unveiled
In December 2016, Nike said a trio of its top pro marathoners would forgo major spring road races to instead take part in a race controlled and engineered by Nike with the intent to break two hours in the marathon. The reigning men’s world record at the time was 2:02:57, set by Kenya’s Dennis Kimetto in 2014. The sportswear giant said it had begun engineering marathon-specific footwear as far back as 2013 for this purpose. An early such prototype, worn by Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya at the 2015 Berlin Marathon, infamously malfunctioned during the race, costing him the world record.
May 2017 — Breaking 2’s Narrow Miss
Kipchoge, then the reigning Olympic marathon champion, ran 26.2 miles at the Nike event in 2 hours, 25 seconds—better than the world record, though falling short of the “moonshot” goal. The race was not eligible for record status as it wasn’t subject to drug testing or pacing rules in place at other major marathons. But it was a first major showcase of Nike’s carbon fiber running footwear, the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly 4%, which would later go on sale for $250.
October 2019 — Kipchoge’s Unofficial 1:59:40
Kipchoge would go on to break the legal world record at the 2018 Berlin Marathon, running 2:01:39. Still in the shape of his life, he took part in a second stunt marathon aimed at going sub-2, this time sponsored by chemical giant Ineos. At a park in Vienna, Kipchoge became the first human being to run 26.2 miles in under two hours, recording 1:59:40 in the unsanctioned race.
January 2020 — ‘Supershoes’ Regulated
By the turn of the decade, the running world was so convinced of the propulsive advantage of carbon fiber running shoes, nicknamed “supershoes,” that governing body World Athletics convened a technical group to assess whether they should be banned in competition. Indeed, so advantageous were the Nike-engineered sneakers that some pro runners for other brands began competing in VaporFlys with the swoosh blacked out.
In early 2020, World Athletics announced regulations on running footwear in sanctioned races: The shoes could not contain more than one carbon fiber plate, must have a limit to the stack height of the running sole and must be available for purchase by the general public before being used in competition.
June 2020 — Adidas Releases Carbon Fiber Shoe
While the Tokyo Olympics were postponed due to the pandemic, competing running shoe brands began to catch up to Nike with their own carbon fiber products. Adidas marketed its first such shoe, the Adizero Adios Pro, with carbon fiber “rods” to mimic the human foot’s bone structure. Puma, Brooks, Under Armour, Saucony, On, Hoka and other companies all begin releasing their own carbon fiber footwear models as well.
Fall 2023 — New World Marathon Records
With the “supershoe” era in full swing, both Nike and Adidas notched new world records in the men’s and women’s marathons, respectively. Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum runs 2:00:35 at the Chicago Marathon in October, wearing a prototype of Nike’s Alphyfly 3, while Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa runs 2:11:53 at the Berlin Marathon in September, wearing Adidas.
2025 — Sawe Requests More Drug Tests
In his own pursuit of a record run, Sawe aimed to dispel the cloud of suspicion that tends to accompany fast marathon times. His countrywoman Ruth Chepngetich, winner of the 2024 Chicago Marathon in a world-record 2:09:56, was hit with a three-year ban for doping in 2025. Concurrently, Sawe and his sponsor, Adidas, asked the elite marathoning anti-doping authority, the Athletics Integrity Unit, to ramp up his own testing.
“In light of recent and notable doping cases concerning Kenyan athletes, Sawe wants to send a strong message, that while doping is definitely a huge issue in Kenyan sport, there are still many clean and talented athletes who can do incredible things, based on hard work and their own two legs,” according to a press release from Sawe’s agent in September 2025.
According to Letsrun.com, Adidas paid the AIU $50,000 to increase drug testing of Sawe leading into his victory at the 2025 Berlin Marathon, when he ran 2:02:16. That regimen included 25 tests in two months.
April 2026 — Sawe First to Break 2 Hours in Sanctioned Marathon
On the morning of April 26, Sawe finally became the first human to run under two hours in a sanctioned, world record-eligible major marathon, breaking the tape in 1:59:30. Kejelcha finished just 11 seconds behind. The Kenyan and Ethiopian both competed for Adidas in the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3.
In a rare acknowledgment of an achievement by its top rival, Nike on Sunday alluded to Sawe’s record breaking run on the company’s Instagram page. “The clock has been reset. There is no finish line,” the company wrote, tagging the post’s location in London with an accompanying statement by Kipchoge.