After a long wait, Sawei — the runner who broke 2:00 in London — has finally received his own world record. World Athletics recently ratified a batch of world records and one U20 world record. Sawei’s 1:59:30 from this year’s London Marathon has been officially recognized as the men’s marathon world record. He becomes the first athlete in human history to officially break 2:00 in a marathon race, improving the previous world record by 65 seconds. Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa successfully defended her London Marathon title this year in 2:15:41, lowering her women-only marathon world record of 2:15:50 set in London last year by 9 seconds. The ratified U20 world record belongs to Chinese javelin thrower Yan Ziyi, who threw 71.74m at this year’s Diamond League Xiamen meeting. That mark is the second-best in history, just 54 centimetres shy of the world record. Yan went on to win three more Diamond League meets after that, taking four Diamond League victories shortly after turning 18 — she is undoubtedly a rising star in athletics. Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis raised his own pole vault world record by 1 centimetre at the “Mondo Classic” in Uppsala on March 12. Switzerland’s Simon Ehammer reclaimed the World Indoor Championships heptathlon title with 6,670 points, breaking the previous world record of 6,645 set by American Ashton Eaton on March 10, 2012 in Istanbul. Bahamian Devon Charlton defended the World Indoor Championships women’s 60m hurdles title in 7.65 seconds, equalling the world record he set on March 3, 2024 in Glasgow. American Caleb McRae broke the men’s indoor 400m world record on February 13 at the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, improving the long-standing mark by 0.05 seconds. American Michael Norman and Canada’s Christopher Morales Williams have posted faster indoor 400m times, but those performances did not meet ratification standards. Also ratified was the men’s indoor 4×800m relay world record set by the United States on February 6 at the Pennsylvania Classic in Philadelphia. Clay Pender (1:49.69), Luke Hauser (1:47.47), Luciano Fiore (1:47.35) and Sean Doran (1:45.79) combined for 7:10.29, lowering the previous world record of 7:11.30 set by the United States on February 25, 2018 in Boston by 1.01 seconds. Image source: social media #WorldRecords #Athletics #YanZiyi #Sawei #TrailRunningBlast