Kejelcha reclaims half marathon world record with 56:51 in Buenos Aires
Yomif Kejelcha reclaimed the men's half marathon world record on Sunday, running 56 minutes 51 seconds to win the Media Maratón Ciudad de Buenos Aires — a performance that slashed 29 seconds off the mark Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo had set just five months earlier. The time is subject to official ratification by World Athletics, the sport's governing body, but stands as the fastest half marathon ever run. World Athletics
A half marathon covers 21.1 kilometres, and Kejelcha covered that distance at an average pace of roughly 2:41 per kilometre — faster than most recreational runners can sustain for a single lap of a track.
The record has changed hands three times inside two years. Kejelcha first set it at 57:30 in Valencia in October 2024, a mark that stood until Kiplimo ran 57:20 in Lisbon this March to take it for himself. Now Kejelcha has it back, and he did not merely reclaim it. He demolished it, taking nearly half a minute off a world-class time. BBC Sport
For Kejelcha, the 28-year-old Ethiopian, the half marathon record adds to a résumé that already spans track, road and marathon. He holds the world record for a men's 10,000m road race and earned world championship silver on the track over the same distance. Earlier this year, he became one of the first men to break two hours in a marathon under record-eligible conditions, finishing second behind Kenya's Sebastian Sawe at the London Marathon. Sawe won that race in 1:59:30, 11 seconds clear of Kejelcha.
The sub-two-hour marathon — long considered one of the barriers in distance running — has only recently been breached in sanctioned competition. Kejelcha's presence on that short list signals a rare range: a man who can run a world-class 10,000m on the track, dip under two hours for the full marathon, and now own the fastest half marathon ever recorded.
What lingers, though, is the margin. Nine seconds separated Kejelcha's first record from Kiplimo's. Twenty-nine seconds separate Kiplimo's from Kejelcha's new one. In a discipline where records often fall by a handful of seconds, to take nearly half a minute off a world best is the kind of leap that makes the athletics world pause and check the clock again.
Whether Kiplimo, or indeed Kejelcha himself, can go faster still is the question the record book now leaves open. For now, the half marathon belongs to the man who lost it and came back to take it apart.
