2.09,47. There is the new Swedish record time for the marathon. The record was broken this weekend during the Paris Marathon and the new record man is Samuel Tsegay. With that, he is the first Swedish runner to manage to run under two hours and ten seconds.
"I am so happy to have broken the Swedish record. But I'm not going to relax now just for that, I'm going to keep working hard to break even more records," said Samuel Tsegay, 35, after the race.
Swedish citizen last year
The score was enough for eighth place in the race, which was won by Abeje Ayana from Ethiopia. Samuel Tsegay became a Swedish citizen this summer and made his first championship during the European Championships last year, but then he was forced to retire due to problems with a shoe.
"I thank God that I was now able to both start and finish without any problems. And so I'm happy with the result and the record, because it was a tough race with a lot of headwinds."
This was the eighth time in his career that Tsegay managed to sprint under two hours and ten seconds – but the first time as a Swedish citizen. The marathon world record is 2:01,09 and was set in 2022 by Eliud Kipchoge. Mustafa Mohamed's previous Swedish record was 2:10,03.