Of the 1,000 fastest marathon times ever run by men, 404 belong to Kenyans and 227 to Ethiopians, together 63%. Among the 500 fastest women the two countries hold 62%. Every men's world record since 2003 has been set by a Kenyan or an Ethiopian, and on 26 April 2026 Sabastian Sawe of Kenya ran 1:59:30 in London, the first marathon under two hours in a record-eligible race. This article follows the race from its 1896 beginnings to that result, and looks at when and how the East African takeover started.

The short version

• The men's record has fallen from 2:55:18 in 1908 to 1:59:30 in 2026, a drop of almost a third (31.8%).
• Kenya has won the most Olympic marathon medals (17), ahead of the United States (14) and Ethiopia (13). Ethiopia leads on golds, 7 to Kenya's 5.
• The takeover began in the 1960s, not earlier. Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila won the 1960 Olympic marathon. Kenya won its first Olympic medal in 1964 and three track golds in 1968, led by Kip Keino.
• Scientific reviews find no single cause. The strongest evidence points to a mix of altitude, early running, body type and economic motivation.

From a legend to a standard distance

The marathon is named after a story, not a measured event. The historian Herodotus wrote that the Athenian courier Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta and back before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. A much later writer, the satirist Lucian, told a different version in which a runner carried news of the victory from Marathon to Athens and died on arrival. That second story is the one that inspired the race, and it is now generally regarded as legend.

The first modern marathon was run at the 1896 Athens Olympics over roughly 40 kilometres. Seventeen men from five countries started, and a Greek shepherd, Spyros Louis, won. There was no fixed distance. The 1908 London Games used 42,195 metres (26 miles and 385 yards) because of where the start and finish lines fell, a length with no special athletic significance. The sport's governing body declared it the standard in 1921, and the Olympics have used it again since 1924.

The strange marathon of 1904

The 1904 Olympic marathon in St. Louis is the best case for how unfinished the sport was. It was run on 30 August in the heat, over dusty roads shared with cars and horses, with a single water stop. Of 32 starters from four countries, only 14 are ranked as finishers.

• The winner was dosed. Tom Hicks of the United States won in 3:28:53 after his handlers gave him strychnine sulfate in egg white, and sips of brandy, as he faded. Strychnine is a highly toxic poison, still best known as a pesticide for killing rodents, but in small doses it was then used as a stimulant and performance enhancer.
• The first man across the line did not run it. Fred Lorz, also from the United States, rode in a car for much of the course, then entered the stadium first and was found out. He was banned for life, and the ban was lifted in time for him to win the 1905 Boston Marathon.
• Félix Carvajal of Cuba raised the fare by staging exhibitions and running the length of Cuba, lost it gambling in New Orleans and hitchhiked to St. Louis. He ran in street clothes with his trousers cut short, stopped to eat green apples, and still finished fourth.
• Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiani (Tswana men who had been dispatch runners in the Boer War) became the first South African Olympians and finished 9th and 12th.

Kenya and Ethiopia: when it started

Looking at the Olympic marathon alone, East Africa is absent for the first 64 years. The thirteen men's marathons from 1896 to 1956 produced no Kenyan or Ethiopian medallist. The first came in Rome in 1960, when Bikila of Ethiopia won. He had begun marathon running only a few months earlier, won again in 1964 and was the first person to win the Olympic marathon twice in a row. Ethiopia's Mamo Wolde won in 1968 and took bronze in 1972.

Kenya's start came on the track. Wilson Kiprugut won Kenya's first Olympic medal, a bronze in the 800 metres in Tokyo in 1964, and a silver in 1968. At Mexico City in 1968, Kenyan men won three golds, which lifted the country from 1 medal in 1964 to 9. Kenya's first Olympic marathon medal followed in 1988 (silver, Douglas Wakiihuri), and its first marathon gold in 2008 (Sammy Wanjiru).

The pioneers

Olympedia describes Kip Keino as "the first great Kenyan middle- or long-distance runner", who "inspired many of his fellow countrymen and women to become a distance running force". He never ran an Olympic marathon, but he is central to the story. He set world records at 3,000 metres (7:39.6) and 5,000 metres (13:24.2) in 1965. At Mexico City in 1968, ill, he won the 1,500 metres and took silver in the 5,000 metres. In 1972 he won the steeplechase and took silver again in the 1,500 metres. He later headed a foundation for orphans and became president of the Kenyan Olympic Committee.

Olympedia also records where the early Kenyan stars came from. Keino and Biwott were born in Nandi, Temu in Sotik and Kiprugut in Kericho, districts in western Kenya. Kiprugut was recruited into the Kenyan Army after being spotted at the 1958 East African championships, and Keino served in the Kenyan Police Force, so state institutions gave them time to train.

Who wins and who runs fast

Olympic medals measure the best runners on one day every four years. The World Athletics all-time lists measure depth, meaning how many athletes from each country have run extremely fast. On both measures Kenya and Ethiopia are far ahead.

Japan is third in depth, with 111 men and 50 women on the lists, but it has no men and only four women among the fastest 100. Outside the three, no country has more than a few names in the top 100 of either sex.

Why East Africa? What the research says

No single answer is established. A 2012 review in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance (Wilber and Pitsiladis) lists eight factors that have been proposed, including genetics, high oxygen uptake from walking and running as children, body shape, altitude, diet and motivation. It concludes that success "is not based on a unique genetic or physiological characteristic". It points instead to favourable body shape giving efficient running, living and training at altitude with moderate volumes of high-intensity work, and a strong drive to succeed for economic and social advancement.

A 2006 study by Onywera and colleagues in the Journal of Sports Sciences surveyed 404 elite Kenyan runners and 87 Kenyan non-runners, and found how unevenly the talent is spread inside Kenya:

The authors conclude that the findings "highlight the importance of environmental and social factors". The numbers show that a country label hides much of the pattern: within Kenya, elite running is concentrated in particular regions and communities.

The sub-2 chase

Running the marathon in under two hours needs an average pace of just over 2 minutes 50 seconds per kilometre for 42.195 kilometres. The record has fallen in steps. Patrick Makau ran 2:03:38 in 2011, Wilson Kipsang 2:03:23 in 2013, Dennis Kimetto 2:02:57 in 2014, and Eliud Kipchoge 2:01:39 in 2018. Kipchoge cut it to 2:01:09 in 2022, and Kelvin Kiptum ran 2:00:35 in Chicago in October 2023.

In October 2019, in Vienna, Kipchoge ran 1:59:40. The race was designed for the attempt, with 41 rotating pacemakers and drinks delivered by bicycle, so World Athletics did not ratify it as a record. It remains a milestone, and it put the two-hour mark within reach. The first record-eligible sub-2 came on 26 April 2026 in London. Sawe won in 1:59:30, Ethiopia's Yomif Kejelcha was second in 1:59:41, and Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo third in 2:00:28.

Who has the most runners?

Elite results are well documented, but counting everyday runners by country is much harder. We could not find an open, comparable count of marathon or road runners for every country. The best open source we found is the official parkrun list of events (free weekly 5 km runs). It counts events, not runners, and covers only 20 countries, with none in Kenya or Ethiopia.

Most countries on this list do not appear near the top of the elite lists, and Kenya and Ethiopia, which lead the elite lists, have no parkrun events. Mass participation and elite success are different measures, and one does not predict the other.

What this does and does not show

• Not a ranking of ability. The lists count the fastest times by country. They do not measure how many runners a country has, and they are shaped by where races with pacemakers, prize money and fast courses are held.
• No single cause. The research above describes associations. It does not prove that altitude, school running, genes or motivation alone explains the pattern, and the studies themselves say so.
• The early record is uneven. Before about 1980 the marathon record progression is a list of best performances, some on courses that were not measured to modern standards, so older entries should be read as approximate.
• Medals count the top three places only. They record one race every four years, so a few results can move a country's total, and early Games had small fields from few countries.
• Participation data are thin. The parkrun table counts events in 20 countries, not people, and says nothing about China, India, Kenya, Ethiopia or most of Africa and Asia.
• Nationality is as listed. We used the country shown on each source. Some athletes have switched countries, and we did not adjust for that.

Method and data

• Olympic marathon medals: Olympedia results pages for every men's and women's marathon from 1896 to 2024 (41 events). We counted the three medallists' countries and excluded the 1906 Intercalated Games. Details of the 1904 and 1908 races, and athlete biographies for Kip Keino, Wilson Kiprugut, Naftali Temu, Amos Biwott and Abebe Bikila. Kenya's medals by Games come from the Olympedia Kenya page (all sports).
• All-time performances by country: World Athletics, men and women senior outdoor marathon lists, best result per athlete, top 1,000 men and top 500 women, accessed 28 October 2026. Lists change as new races are run.
• Record progression: Wikipedia, Marathon world record progression, checked against the World Athletics list. We kept only entries that improved on the previous best, 1908 to 2026. The sub-2 attempt: Ineos 1:59 Challenge.
• Strychnine: Wikipedia.
• The legend of Pheidippides: Wikipedia, summarising Herodotus and Lucian.
• Research on East African running: Wilber RL and Pitsiladis YP, Kenyan and Ethiopian distance runners: what makes them so good?, Int J Sports Physiol Perform 2012; Onywera VO, Scott RA, Boit MK and Pitsiladis YP, Demographic characteristics of elite Kenyan endurance runners, J Sports Sci 2006.
• parkrun events by country: the official parkrun events file, counting the main 5 km series only (2,419 events), accessed 28 October 2026.
• Charts and tables are our own derived work from these sources and are not endorsed by them.