NAIROBI, Kenya — Sabastian Sawe shattered one of sport’s most resilient barriers on April 26, becoming the first human to run an official marathon in under two hours. The 31-year-old Kenyan clocked 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds at the London Marathon, a feat that triggered celebrations across Kenya and drew a new level of international attention to the quiet rituals of faith that sustain so many of its distance runners. Ethiopian runner Yomif Kejelcha also broke the two-hour mark in the same race, finishing 11 seconds behind Sawe.
Sawe’s victory arrived after a moment of pastoral simplicity. Before departing for London, he attended Mass at Holy Family Catholic Church in Eldoret, part of the St. Josephine Bakhita Lower Moiben Parish in western Kenya’s Rift Valley — the geographic heart of global distance running. There, he asked for a blessing.
“When I blessed him, I never thought he would achieve such a global victory,” Rev. Pius Tuwei, the parish priest, told Religion News Service in an interview published Friday. “It was really a surprise for me when I heard he had won. I was just blessing him like any other athlete or any other person.”
The priest described Sawe as a devoted parishioner whose generosity to the church echoes a quality he may have inherited from his grandmother, an especially charitable member of the faith community. “That could have really given him a very strong foundation on morals, the church and discipline — this could have contributed to his success,” Tuwei said. “I think giving back to society is also holding him to his faith.”
Sawe made his marathon debut in 2024, winning the Valencia Marathon in a time of 2:02:05. His rise to the top of the sport has been swift, but his religious commitment is a long-established fact among those who know him in Eldoret. Back home, Tuwei said, parishioners have celebrated his success and his consistent support for the church.
The intersection of distance running and Christianity in Kenya has been visible for decades — athletes often perform the sign of the cross at the start and end of races — but is now drawing fresh scrutiny as a possible contributor to the nation’s unprecedented dominance. Church leaders in the region report that many champions maintain close relationships with their pastors and priests, frequently visiting them for blessings before major competitions.
Eliud Kipchoge, the world-famous marathoner who was the first human to break two hours in a specially-constructed 2019 event in Vienna, has also spoken publicly about his Catholic faith. “It keeps me from doing things that could keep me away from my goals,” he said in a 2019 interview. “On Sundays, I go to church with my family and pray regularly, even in the morning before a race.” Kipchoge’s 2019 run, while historic, was not recognized as an official world record because of the controlled conditions designed to aid the attempt.
Patrick Makau Musyoki, a former world marathon record holder from Kenya, framed faith as an essential complement to talent and effort. “We are able to train very well, but at the end of the day, for us to manage to go to a race and a winner to run the world record, we should have faith in God, who gave us the talent,” Makau said. “And he helps you to keep on improving talent.”
Not everyone in Kenya’s running ecosystem sees the connection in such direct terms. Brother Colm O’Connell, the Irish missionary and athletics coach widely known as the “godfather of Kenyan running” for his decades training elite athletes in the Rift Valley, said he was inspired to learn that Sawe received his priest’s blessing before the race — but he cautioned that it had little to do with the result.
“If that was the case, then marathon runners might spend more time in the church than on the road,” O’Connell told RNS. “I think that God helps those who help themselves. So, you know, he gave you a talent, and then you have to get out and use it, and not hide it.”
O’Connell predicted that marathon performances will continue to progress as training methods, diet, and technology advance. “It’s 1 hour, 59 now,” he said. “Then it will be 1 hour, 58, and then it will be 1 hour, 57.”
Sawe’s words after the race were simpler. “Nothing is impossible,” he told reporters in London. The statement carried a double meaning — both a reference to the physical barrier he had just broken and, for those who knew his pre-race routine, a theological claim about the power of faith.
Sports analysts have long attributed Kenya’s distance-running dominance to a combination of genetic endowment, upbringing at altitude, and intensive training from a young age, often on rugged tracks or barefoot on unpaved roads. The athletes’ faith is now receiving attention as a less-quantifiable but, by their own accounts, essential dimension of how they prepare for competition — not as a substitute for work but as a source of meaning and motivation.
In Eldoret, Tuwei said he sees something innate in Sawe’s gift. “When I look at Sawe,” the priest said, “it seems his talent is real — not acquired.” After the record, the parish that blessed an athlete before a race now has, among its congregation, a world-record holder who still shows up for Mass — and, the priest suggested, a reminder that ordinary pastoral acts can precede extraordinary human achievement.