World Athletics announced on Thursday that it has ratified eight new world records, including Sabastian Sawe’s historic 1:59:30 marathon in April in London where he became the first person to officially run under two hours in the distance.
The marks cover events from February to May this year and include seven senior record and one under-20 achievement across a range of events on the road, track and field.
At the Penn Classic on February 6 in Philadelphia, a Team USA men’s 4x800m squad with Clay Pender (1:49.69), Luke Houser (1:47.47), Luciano Fiore (1:47.35) and Sean Dolan (1:45.79) bolted to a 7:10.29 mark to secure the first record on the list.
A week layer at the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Khaleb McRae broke the men’s world short track 400m mark in 44.52.
The next month on March 12, Mondo Duplantis soared to his 15th world record in the men’s pole vault when he reached 6.31m at the Mondo Classic in Upsalla.
Simon Ehammer set the men’s heptathlon points mark at 6670 on March 21 at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze while Devynne Charlton grabbed her own record at the event, equaling the women’s 60m hurdles mark in 7.65, which she set in 2024.
Sawe’s brush with running immortality was reached in London on April 26 with his 1:59:30 record that put him officially as the first person to go below two hours in the event. In the same race, Tigst Assefa secured the women’s marathon women only record with a 2:15:41 time in her win.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Yan Ziyi set the under 20 women’s javelin record with a 71.74m throw at the Diamond League meeting in Xiamen on 23 May.
