world record

LONDON — The fabled two-hour barrier for a marathon has been broken, officially, in an once-inconceivable achievement in sports.

Not by one runner, but two.

In a race for the ages, Sabastian Sawe of Kenya won the London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds on Sunday, shattering the previous men’s world record by an astonishing 65 seconds.

“What comes today is not for me alone,” the 29-year-old Sawe said, “but for all of us today in London.”

Just 11 seconds further back was Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, who — running in his first-ever marathon — also covered the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) course in under 2 hours.

Completing the podium was Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who broke the previous world-record time — set by Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum in Chicago in 2023 — by seven seconds, finishing in 2:00:28.

In an exhilarating sight, Sawe ran quicker as the marathon went on, covering the second half of the race in 59 minutes and 1 second. He pulled clear with Kejelcha after 30 kilometers and then made his solo break in the final two kilometers, sprinting along the finish on The Mall to loud cheers.

Sabastian Sawe of Team Kenya runs ahead of Yomif Kejelcha of Team Ethiopia during the London Marathon on Sunday in London.

(Warren Little / Getty Images)

Sawe, who retained his title in London, said it was a “day to remember for me” and thanked the huge crowds who lined the streets of the British capital to witness what might be regarded as a feat marking the peak of human physical achievement.

“I think they help a lot,” he said, “because if it was not for them you don’t feel like you are so loved … with them calling, you feel so happy and strong.”

Under two hours has been done before — unofficially

Breaking two hours in a marathon has been a long time coming — and has been done before.

However, when Eliud Kipchoge — the Kenyan long-distance great — achieved the feat in Vienna in 2019, it was in a specially tailored race called the “1.59 Challenge” that was arranged by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe in favorable conditions, on a 6-mile (9.6-kilometer) circuit, and using rotating pacemakers.

That meant it wasn’t classed as an official race setting, so Kipchoge’s time of 1:59:40 didn’t go in the record book.

In any case, Sawe surpassed that time by 10 seconds on a mostly flat course across London in dry, sunny conditions.

Sabastian Sawe, of Kenya, smiles and holds up his adidas shoe with his world-record marathon time written on it Sunday in London.

(Alex Davidson / Getty Images)

“The goalposts have literally just moved for marathon running,” Paula Radcliffe, a former winner of the London Marathon, said during commentary of the race for the BBC.

At the turn of the century, the world’s best time for the men’s marathon was 2:05:42, set by Khalid Khannouchi in Chicago in 1999.

Khannouchi broke his own record by four seconds in 2002 — the last time the fastest men’s marathon was run in London — and it has been whittled down gradually over the last 24 years by a succession of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners, including Haile Gebrselassie, Wilson Kipsang, Kipchoge and most recently Kiptum.

Assefa wins fastest-ever women’s-only marathon

A record was also set in the women’s race, with Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa pulling away with about 500 meters remaining to win in 2:15:41 and defend the title in the fastest-ever time in a women’s-only marathon.

However, it was 16 seconds slower than the course record set by Radcliffe in 2003 when it was a mixed race.

Tigst Assefa celebrates as she crosses the finish line during the London Marathon women’s race in a record time Sunday.

(Ian Walton / Associated Press)

Kenya’s Hellen Obiri was 12 seconds back in second place in a personal-best time on her London debut and compatriot Joyciline Jepkosgei was third, a further two seconds adrift. It was the first time three women have run under 2 hours, 16 minutes in a marathon.

“I screamed when I finished because I knew I was breaking the world record,” Assefa said.

“I felt much healthier today and have worked really hard on my speed and all my training has paid off.”

Swiss double in wheelchair races

In the wheelchair races, there was a Swiss double with Marcel Hug powering to a sixth straight men’s title — and eighth in total — and Catherine Debrunner beating Tatyana McFadden in a close finish to defend the title.

A few days ago came the astonishing news that the world record in the half-marathon was obliterated by a 5-foot-5 humanoid robot named Lightning in Beijing.

Now a robot named Ace has achieved another milestone for AI and robotics by defeating expert-level humans at table tennis in Tokyo, according to a study published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.

What’s next, a robotic baseball player named Babe that swats 500-foot home runs and throws 120 mph pitches, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s real-life achievements and commanding a billion dollar contract?

It’s all fun and games until it isn’t.

Extraordinary athletic achievements by AI robots might seem innocuous, especially compared to far more grave threats described by various experts, including the landmark publication “An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks” by the Center for AI Safety in 2023.

To name a few: Misinformation and social media manipulation; job displacement and economic inequality; cybersecurity threats; lethal autonomous weapons; environmental impact; psychological dependence; and ultimately, the existential risk to humanity of losing control of rogue AI systems.

For now, let’s get back to ping-pong.

Ace was developed by good, old Sony, the 80-year-old makers of gaming consoles, televisions, smartphones, cameras and audio equipment that we enjoy every day.

Of course Sony has an AI research division, and while most consumers were still going ga-ga over PlayStation 5 Pro 2TB, it developed the first robot to attain expert-level performance in a competitive physical sport that requires rapid decisions and precision execution.

Ace integrates nine synchronized cameras and three vision systems to track the spinning plastic ping-pong ball. Its lightning-fast processing time would be the envy of even Lightning, the humanoid robot that broke the world record in the half-marathon by nearly seven minutes.

“Here we present Ace, to our knowledge the first real-world autonomous system competitive with elite human table tennis players,” the study said. “Ace addresses the challenges of physical real-time interaction through a new, high-speed perception system using event-based vision sensors and a new control system based on model-free reinforcement learning, as well as state-of-the-art high-speed robot hardware.”

Ace showed out in matches that followed International Table Tennis Federation rules and were officiated by licensed umpires. Most of the matches took place in 2025 — before table tennis tale “Marty Supreme” even hit theaters — although Ace defeated professional players as recently as March.

One such human is Mayuka Taira, who said in comments provided by Sony AI to Reuters that the robot’s strengths are what one might expect: unpredictability and an absence of emotion.

“Because you can’t read its reactions, it’s impossible to sense what kind of shots it dislikes or struggles with, and that makes it even more difficult to play against,” Taira said.

Initial real-world applications of Ace-like robots likely would be in manufacturing and service industries, although untapped potential lies across sports, entertainment and safety-critical environments, according to the study.

“These results highlight the potential of physical AI agents to perform complex, real-time interactive tasks, suggesting broader applications in domains requiring fast, precise human–robot interaction,” the study said.

Those domains certainly could include baseball diamonds, basketball courts and gridirons. Hockey rinks could be lumped in provided robots can skate.

AI already is used in MLB. The vaunted Automated Ball-Strike system (ABS) uses AI-powered Hawk-Eye camera technology and computer vision to determine if pitches are strikes or balls. Twelve high-speed cameras track ball flight and AI delivers the definitive call to the scoreboard within seconds of a challenge.

A robotic batter facing a robotic pitcher with calls made by ABS might eliminate any disagreements over balls and strikes.

Terrifying.

Reuters contributed to this story.