Berlin Will Pace Its Men’s Race for Eliud Kipchoge’s Course Record

Berlin lost its sub-two-hour attempt on Aug. 27, when Sabastian Sawe, the marathon world record holder, withdrew from Sunday’s race with an injury that LetsRun later reported was a stress fracture in his right tibia. The organizers are aiming high without him. In a release on Friday, race director Mark Milde said “we have hopes for a course record” and that “the pace for the first group will be towards 2:01,” which would put Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:01:09 from 2022 within reach.

Kipchoge’s time was a world record when he set it, and only four men have run faster since, according to World Athletics. Three of them did it in the same race, in London in April, where Sawe won in 1:59:30 and Yomif Kejelcha finished just 11 seconds behind him on his debut, with Jacob Kiplimo third. The fourth was Kelvin Kiptum, whose 2:00:35 in Chicago in 2023 took the world record away from Berlin.

With Sawe gone, Gabriel Geay of Tanzania has the fastest personal best on the start list, the 2:03:00 he ran in Valencia in 2022, and he would have to take another 1:51 off it to beat Kipchoge. An even 2:01 would bring the leaders through halfway in 60:30, only a second slower than Sawe was in London before he ran the second half in 59:01. Kipchoge was a good deal quicker than that on his record day in 2022, reaching halfway in 59:50, World Athletics reported. Milde’s plan leaves a margin of about nine seconds, so anyone hoping for the record will need to hold the pace all the way to the Brandenburg Gate.

The Men Who Could Go With the Pace

Guye Adola won Rotterdam in April in 2:03:54, only eight seconds outside the 2:03:46 he ran here as a debutant in 2017, when he finished 14 seconds behind Kipchoge. He won Berlin in 2021 as well. At 35, he told the organizers he is “in the best shape of my life,” and he has been training in Addis Ababa with Kejelcha, who broke the half-marathon world record in Buenos Aires in August. “During our training runs, I was only a little behind Yomif,” Adola said.

Geay’s last visit to Berlin ended early, when he dropped out in the heat a year ago after running with Sawe through the opening 5K. He won the Daegu Marathon in February, and on Friday he said, “I am in good shape and hope to run a very good time.” Getaneh Molla, whose 2:03:34 came on his debut in Dubai in 2019, was second in Seoul in March in 2:04:23, and Shura Kitata won a photo finish in Seville in February in 2:03:59. Selemon Barega, who won the Olympic 10,000m title in 2021, has only two marathons behind him, and his best of 2:05:00 came in Tokyo in March.

Cooler Than Last Year

Sawe won last year’s race in 2:02:16 with the temperature reaching 25 C late in the morning, and the organizers have moved this year’s start half an hour earlier, to 8:45 a.m. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute’s forecast for Sunday has 11 C at 8 a.m., dry skies and a light easterly wind, warming to about 16 C by 11 a.m.

Kipchoge won here in under 2:02 in 2018 and 2022, and Kenenisa Bekele ran 2:01:41 in 2019, two seconds outside the world record of the time. Those are the only three winning times under 2:02 in the race’s history. Bekele was due to race again on Sunday but withdrew on Thursday with an Achilles injury. The two winners since Kipchoge’s last victory in 2023, Milkesa Mengesha and Sawe, ran 2:03:17 and 2:02:16.

Twenty-six men on the start list have run under 2:08:00, including 11 Japanese runners with bests between about 2:06 and 2:08, and a few of them could go after Suguru Osako’s national record of 2:04:55 from Valencia in December. Our guide to watching the race has the broadcast details, and the storylines preview covers the women’s race, where Tigst Assefa is chasing the world record.

Sawe will be in Berlin on Sunday as the organizers’ guest of honor. His agent, Eric Lilot, told LetsRun that the injury rules out a fall marathon and that Sawe is aiming to be back racing in the spring of 2027.