{"id":240660,"date":"2026-04-27T18:52:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T18:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/the-two-hour-marathon-is-done-but-other-records-remain-to-be-broken\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T18:52:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T18:52:42","slug":"the-two-hour-marathon-is-done-but-other-records-remain-to-be-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/the-two-hour-marathon-is-done-but-other-records-remain-to-be-broken\/","title":{"rendered":"The two-hour marathon is done \u2013 but other records remain to be broken"},"content":{"rendered":"

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B<\/span>ad news for anyone who secretly fancies themselves every time they lace up their trainers: the two-hour marathon record has gone. Sabastian Sawe\u2019s astonishing effort at the London marathon on Sunday<\/a> \u2013 cruising across the finish line in the Mall in 1hr 59m 30s like a man who has just jogged a parkrun \u2013 shattered a record long seen as beyond human capability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said it couldn\u2019t be done!\u201d roared BBC commentator Steve Cram. And then, 11 seconds later, Yomif Kejelcha did it too \u2013 and he\u2019d never even run a marathon<\/a> before.<\/p>\n

Even Jacob Kiplimo in third came close to breaking one of the most talismanic athletic barriers in history, beating the previous world record but missing the \u201csub two\u201d by 28 seconds. The men\u2019s two-hour marathon in race conditions has been comprehensively done<\/em>. Find yourself a new challenge.<\/p>\n

Happily, humans are not yet all-powerful and a few records and firsts \u2013 athletic and otherwise \u2013 remain to be achieved. Here are a few to inspire your next sponsored challenge.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Beno\u00eet Lecomte starts his attempt to swim across the Pacific from Choshi in Japan in 2018.<\/span> Photograph: Martin Bureau\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first Pacific swim<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Yes, some people see this as an achieveable goal, and one person has even tried it, if one adopts an elastic definition that allows for taking the world\u2019s biggest ocean in stages.<\/p>\n

French swimmer Beno\u00eet Lecomte set off<\/a> from Choshi in Japan in 2018 with a plan to swim 40 nautical miles (64km) a day until he hit San Francisco, resting at night on his support boat. However, he was forced to give up<\/a> after a mere 1,500 miles when the boat suffered irreparable damage.<\/p>\n

Lecomte already claims a world first on swimming the Atlantic, after he crossed from Massachusetts to Brittany in northern France in 1998<\/a> (with a week off in the Azores halfway through). Guinness World Records does not recognise<\/a> the attempt, however, due to uncertainty over the distance he swam. The first circumnavigation of Great Britain, on the other hand, has officially happened. (\u201cIt was brutal,\u201d said 33-year-old Ross Edgley on finally coming ashore<\/a> in Margate in 2018.)<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Jonathan Edwards makes his gold medal jump at the Sydney Olympics of 2000. The Briton still holds the triple jump record of 18.29 metres.<\/span> Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 9-metre long jump<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another near miss, American Mike Powell\u2019s world record long jump of 8.95 metres<\/a> in 1991 has never been surpassed (though he jumped a wind-assisted 8.99 metres the following year at altitude).<\/p>\n

His 35-year record is not the longest to stand in athletics, however. Florence Griffith-Joyner\u2019s <\/strong>100m in 10.49<\/a> seconds and 200m in 21.34 seconds, both set in 1988, are unsurpassed, as are the women\u2019s 400m and 800m records, set in 1985 and 1983 by athletes from the former German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia respectively.<\/p>\n

Even Jonathan Edwards\u2019s 18.29-metre triple jump has stood for more than 30 years (it was set in 1995), which he believes is because athletics has \u201cnot kept pace<\/a> with the professionalism of sport\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Vitomir Mari\u010di\u0107 of Croatia trains in Rijeka last year. The freediver has the world record breath hold.<\/span> Photograph: Damir Sencar\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 30-minute breath hold<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Croat Vitomir Mari\u010di\u0107<\/a> got to 29 minutes and 3 seconds in 2025, but the big 30, as probably no one calls it, has never been achieved.<\/p>\n

Croatia, indeed, appears to be a centre of excellence for the sport, the record was held by his countryman Budimir \u0160obat<\/a>, whose time of 24 minutes and 37.36 seconds, was, noted Guinness World Records, longer than an episode of the Simpsons.<\/p>\n

Perhaps encouragingly for late starters, \u0160obat did not take up freediving until the age of 48, and said his age helped him stay calm at critical moments. \u201cOf course, you have to be a little bit mad,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan is the highest unconquered mountain \u2013 and will remain that way because climbing it is banned.<\/span> Photograph: Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first ascent of <\/strong>Gangkhar Puensum<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At 7,570 metres (24,836 ft), Gangkhar Puensum is actually a tiddler \u2013 only the 40th highest mountain on Earth and more than a kilometre shorter than Everest. However, the highest mountain in Bhutan is also the highest unclimbed peak on earth, a status that would ordinarily send mountaineers clamouring for their crampons.<\/p>\n

There were a number of unsuccessful attempts in the 1980s, but for now at least, we can be confident the mountain whose name means \u201cWhite Peak of the Three Spiritual Brothers<\/a>\u201d will remain unconquered. In 1994, Bhutan banned the climbing of all peaks over 6,000m, citing respect for local spiritual beliefs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad news for anyone who secretly fancies themselves every time they lace up their trainers: the two-hour marathon record has gone. Sabastian Sawe\u2019s astonishing effort at the London marathon on Sunday \u2013 cruising across the finish line in the Mall in 1hr 59m 30s like a man who has just jogged a parkrun \u2013 shattered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6802],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-240660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athetics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}