Last time I checked all-time men’s best marathon times and the world record evolution was in 2014 ahead of running Rotterdam marathon (post back then). In this blog post I’m going to make an update, share some charts and review some statistics. For that purpose, I use the website “Track and Field all-time Performances” (maintained since years ago by Peter Larsson).
With the data of all-time best men’s marathon I plotted the chart below with the best 1,903 times, i.e., all those below 2h08′ and their dates, highlighting marathon times by Haile Gebrselassie, Wilson Kipsang, Eliud Kipchoge, Kenenisa Bekele and Kelvin Kiptum.
Some stats in relation to those 1,903 times under 2h08′:
- Countries of which athletes achieved most such times: Kenya 853 times or 44.8%, Ethiopia 570 times or 30.0%, Japan 114 (6.0%), Morocco 44 (2.3%), Eritrea 41 (2.2%), Israel 20 (1.1%), France 20 (1.1%), Uganda 19 (1.0%). Those are the top 9 countries, there are another 34 from which athletes have run below 2h08′ (for a total of 43 countries).
- There are 742 athletes that have run below 2h08′. The individuals who have done so more often: Eliud Kipchoge 18 times, Sisay Lemma 17, Tsegay Kebede 15, Tamirat Tola 13, Abel Kirui 13, Wilson Kipsang 12, Bernard Kiprop 12, Evans Chebet 12, Benson Kipruto 12, Laban Korir 11, Emmanuel Mutai 11, Amos Kipruto 11, Birhanu Legese 11, Kenenisa Bekele 10, Haile Gebrselassie 10, Leul Gebrselassie 10, Deso Gelmisa 10…
Now, if we raise the bar to see the times at or below 2h05′, we find 231 times:
- Countries of which athletes achieved most such times: Kenya 108 times or 46.8%, Ethiopia 98 times or 42.4% (both combined 89.2%!), Tanzania 4 (1.7%), Belgium 4 (1.7%), Netherlands 3 (1.3%). Those are the top 5 countries, there are another 11 from which athletes have run at or below 2h05′ (for a total of 16 countries).
- There are 124 athletes that have run at or below 2h05′. The individuals who have done so more often: Eliud Kipchoge 14 times, Tamirat Tola 8, Wilson Kipsang 8, Sisay Lemma 7, Amos Kipruto 6, Birhanu Legese 6, Leul Gebrselassie 5, three athletes with 4 times including Kenenisa Bekele, 14 athletes with 3 times including Kelvin Kiptum, Dennis Kimetto, Geoffrey Mutai and Haile Gebrselassie, 23 athletes with 2 times including Patrick Makau…
- Which are the fastest marathons? The cities where most of those 231 times at or below 2h05′ have been achieved are: Berlin and Valencia with 35 each, London and Dubai with 27 each, Rotterdam 18, Amsterdam and Chicago with 15 each, Tokyo 14. Those are the top 8 cities (accounting for 81% of those 231 times), there are other 16 cities where such fast times have been achieved.
Now let’s look at the evolution of the World Record since 1985 in this other chart:
Some comments to the chart:
- In the last 40 years, the record has been beaten 13 times.
- The current world record was set by Kelvin Kiptum in Chicago in 2023 with 2h00’35” at the age of 23.9. He sadly passed away in a car crash a few months later. His career was very promising, having run only 3 marathons, all three in less than 12 months, all 3 below 2h02′. 3 of the best 7 times, 1 of the only 4 men having run below that mark.
- The record that lasted the most was Dinsamo’s 2:06:50 in 1988, which took just over 10 years to be beaten by Ronaldo da Costa in 1998.
- 3 athletes have set the world record twice: Khalid Khannouchi, Haile Gebrselassie and Eliud Kipchoge.
- The biggest improvement of the record was made by Eliud Kipchoge who took 1’18” off Dennis Kimetto’s previous record.
- Geoffrey Mutai ran in 2h03’02” before 3 world records set the bar below his time, however, as he achieved that in Boston 2011 (downhill and point to point race) it didn’t count for the record.
What is the best age to run marathons?
I plotted this other chart looking at the best 1,903 marathon times vs the age the runners had at the time of completing each of those races.
Most of the times below 2h08′ are achieved between 23 and 33 years old, but indeed most of the best ones are achieved between 28 and 39 years old, with the exception of the 3 marathons ran by Kelvin Kiptum, including his current world record.
Another interesting chart to relate best times and age is the histogram below. In that one we can see that effectively most of the times below 2h08′ are achieved between 24 and 30 years old, and between 23 and 33 (both included) 80% of those times are achieved.
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