On Sunday, nearly 7,000 miles from the site of a joint sub-two-hour rebranding of marathoning’s bounds with Sabastian Sawe, Yomif Kejelcha surged on a solo mission with a 56:51 half marathon takedown in Buenos Aires.
For Kejelcha, he reclaimed a world record first etched in Valencia in October 2024, which was then surrendered to Jacob Kiplimo in 57:20 this past March on the streets of Lisbon.
The feat in Buenos Aires was noticeably defiant, as Kejelcha scraped 29 seconds from Kiplimo’s mark on a course touted by organizers as the “fastest course in America.”
And it was clear that the branding lived up to its reputation, with the follow-up to April’s stunning 1:59:40 strike at history by Kejelcha serving as his own stage rather than sharing the marquee with Sawe, who took a bigger slice of glory in London at ten seconds faster.
But the windfall following the last spring marathon major of the year sent Adidas, and its marketing machine, into overdrive as Tigst Assefa lowered the women’s-only world record to 2:15:41 on the same course that day.
With April’s London Marathon live dress rehearsal being proof that a victory lap is worthy of an encore, the company wasted little time pumping its social media channels with images and videos of Kejelcha storming the finish line in Argentina.
Mainstream news outlets would do the rest, in a scene that echoed the fallout from London while video and photos of Kejelcha depicted him with an eternity of a lead between him and the rest of the field.
His pacers were long gone.
56:51 would rule at least until the next attempts at distance running supremacy, with Sydney, Berlin, Chicago and New York queueing for the fall majors season and eager for their own time in the world record spotlight.
Another post from Adidas on Sunday, titled “The Fastest Ever,” showed Kejelcha alongside Sawe and Assefa, the now familiar trio, wearing shiny oversized gold foil-style jackets with their own separate statements in a declaration that the sport’s new regime is clearly derived in East Africa but with backing from Herzogenaurach, Germany.
The jackets were purposely loud, and the inscriptions were impossible to ignore.
“History In Time” for Sawe as the de facto leader, while “Legend On Debut” reflects Kejelcha’s enormous upside and Assefa’s “Record Rewritten” is displayed as a silent reminder that she needs little invitation to tilt the world’s major marathons.
Meanwhile, the gaudiness of the jackets was balanced and muted by the chill demeanor all three runners have shown when not competing, with Adidas taking every opportunity to be bold on their behalf.
And that boldness was carried through the revelation of this latest marketing blip, likely assembled when Sawe, Kejelcha and Assefa appeared at the company’s global headquarters a day after the London eruption on the roads in April.
Adidas held a massive celebration for the group, and it’s safe to assume that those on the promotional team stockpiled a cache of hard-to-miss darts at rival brand the next time one of the runners reaches another milestone.
Just four months after London, Kejelcha volunteered, showed up in Buenos Aires equipped with the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 on foot and did what feels like will be a scene repeated by him, Sawe and Assefa as their unified hype train turns into a bandwagon.
And while universal praise and kudos from the industry was widespread in April after Sawe, Kejelcha and Assefa invited themselves to history’s doorstep, Kejelcha’s dominance in Buenos Aires was led by cheers from his brand sponsor and fans of the sport.
Rivals like Nike, On, New Balance, Asics and others understandably sat this one out and likely understood the courtesies extended from London would not be repeated the rest of this year, especially as the fall majors season approaches.
Even without a new act of concession from its rivals, Adidas made sure to remind the sport that through its current crop of stars it’s more than capable of using its marketing might to expose old wounds that its competitors would rather be lost to time or the next major headline on the track, in the field — or on the roads.
But that’s ultimately not up to any one brand even if, for years, Nike has held the crowd for the shoe innovations that powered records by Eliud Kipchoge and the late Kelvin Kiptum. And with their achievements, it was a foregone conclusion that the entirety of the industry would have to bow in silence and accept the feats that the running universe would routinely witness.
With Kipchoge out of the racing picture, a reliable savior who arrives at the finish line first and willingly goes on a marketing tour for Nike is a proving to be a role that’s not only difficult to fill in present day, but leaves the door open for eager successors — regardless of the brand.
Even today, Kipchoge can still sell the fastest shoes because the market has long proven that even in a tepid economy all things running remain a priority for consumers.
For the modern runner, being close to the tools of champions will always be part of the allure.
Still, innovation is not exclusive to a single brand and it takes far more than light, dense foam to push the boundaries of seemingly unbreakable marks.
In short, it’s simply the time for Adidas to shine.
What feels like an instant wave of riches shouldn’t be cast off as a case of “right place, right time” for Adidas, since like other major brands, the company has certainly invested in its athletes over the years, along with research that continually supports the push for bigger ambition.
It remains to be seen who among the Sawe, Kejelcha and Assefa trio will strike next.
Sawe has already bowed out of next month’s Berlin Marathon because of injury and won’t get the chance to roar on his brand’s home turf. But Assefa will make the trip to Germany to stake her claim at the next major, while Kejelcha turned down his pick of Chicago or New York and won’t make his way to the fall’s biggest stages.
He opted for a faster push to another possible sub-two hour challenge with Valencia in December to make one final statement in 2026, a declaration we can be certain Adidas will take the lead on being the loudest if he succeeds.
