Sabastian Sawe will return to the BMW Berlin Marathon on 27 September to defend the title he won in 2:02:16 last autumn, the world record-holder confirmed in a statement coordinated with race organisers and his management on Wednesday. It is the first race Sawe has confirmed since 26 April, when he ran 1:59:30 in London to take 65 seconds off his previous best and become the first athlete to break two hours in a record-eligible marathon, eclipsing Eliud Kipchoge's 2019 exhibition mark in Vienna.
“Anything is possible,” Sawe said in a statement distributed by his management on Wednesday, repeating the phrase that has trailed him since London. The Kenyan is unbeaten in his marathon career, with wins in Valencia (2:02:05), London (2:02:27), Berlin (2:02:16) and London again on his world-record day. He is yet to lose a championship-level race over 26.2 miles, a record that gives Berlin organisers a credible argument that the world record can be lowered again on a course that has produced eleven of the previous twelve men's world bests.
Race director Mark Milde has been careful to manage expectations, noting that the Berlin route, while flat, is not pace-controlled in the way a closed-loop time trial would be, and that any attack on 1:59:30 will require near-perfect weather and a deep group of pacemakers committed to a 2:48-per-kilometre rhythm for the opening 30 kilometres. Berlin also retains its World Athletics Platinum Label requirement that pacemakers withdraw by halfway, a rule that has occasionally derailed record bids when the lead group has been too cautious in the early miles.
For Sawe, the Berlin announcement closes the question of what he would do for an encore, and rules out a return to Valencia in December where some had speculated he might chase a fast time on a cooler course. His coaches have described his approach as risk-averse: he trains at altitude in Iten, races sparingly, and has skipped every World Marathon Major he has not been specifically targeting. Doubling Berlin in a calendar year is a clear signal that he sees the German capital, rather than London or Tokyo, as the venue where the next generational time will be set.
The wider field will not be finalised until June, but Berlin is expected to attract a stronger sub-elite group than usual in pursuit of the marketing attention now attached to any credible sub-two-hour pacing project. Sawe will share Iten training mileage with several leading contenders this summer, and any pacemakers willing to take splits through halfway in 59:30 will need to be selected from a small group of athletes capable of that effort without compromising their own autumn schedule. The race is on for Berlin to assemble a logistics package equal to a course famous, until now, more for the records that were broken than for the ones that were targeted.