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Yomif Kejelcha broke the 2-hour marathon but got 2nd place. He’s still happy
Yomif Kejelcha of Team Ethiopia crosses the line and finishes second during the Men’s 2026 TCS London Marathon on April 26, 2026 in London, England.
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After Yomif Kejelcha crossed the finish line at the London Marathon on Sunday, he was shocked by what he’d accomplished.
Kejelcha, 28, ran a 1:59:41, crushing the elusive two-hour marathon goal. Athletes have been striving to break through that barrier for years. To make the story even sweeter, Kejelcha beat it in his first-ever competitive marathon.
“This is so crazy,” he told NPR in an interview on Tuesday from Frankfurt, Germany, where he was still stunned by the accomplishment. “It’s too hard to believe… I don’t have words for it really.”
Before the race, Kejelcha said in an interview that it was “not possible” for him to beat two-hours in his first marathon. He even proved himself wrong.
But, here comes the twist.
Kejelcha finished 11 seconds after Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe. Sawe was hailed as the first man to run an official marathon in under two hours. Kejelcha accepted the title of second-fastest.
“I’m not upset,” he told NPR. “I’m not angry. I’m very, very happy because I broke two hours.”
“It’s… an 11 second difference, so I think it’s not too far for me to break again,” Kejelcha continued.
He and Sawe have a “friendly competition,” he said, and he does consider the fastest marathon runner a close friend.
Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo also beat the previous world record set by the late Kenyan, Kelvin Kiptum, in Chicago in 2023, but he placed third with a time of 2:00:28.
If it was a normal year, Kejelcha or Kiplimo’s time would have been extraordinary headlines. But this year was anything but normal.
Of course, this is not Kejelcha’s first competitive race. He is a versatile runner and a track and road specialist. He set the world indoor mile record in 2019, broke the half-marathon world record in Valencia in 2024, and received a silver medal in the 10,000 meters at last year’s world championships in Tokyo.
Regardless of what may seem to some as an inconceivable loss, Kejelcha said he was feeling “great.”
“To beat two hours, it’s not easy,” he said, and “every athlete who does a marathon” strives to achieve it.
Ahead of the race, Kejelcha told reporters that he was going to run in the first group, but by no means did he think that meant running the race in under two hours.
Sometimes, a “special thing” happens in races, he said, but Kejelcha decided to be more reasonable with himself, guessing he would finish at 2:03 or 2:02.
He’d been dreaming of the London Marathon for a long time. His coach finally agreed to give him a shot in 2026, Kejelcha said.
“My training is really great, as far as tomorrow, I don’t know what [is going to] happen,” Kejelcha remembers thinking to himself.
Throughout the race, Kejelcha said “100%” he and Sawe pushed each other. The runners ran side by side and they dropped Kiplimo between 18 and 21 miles. But with one mile remaining, Sawe took a commanding lead. Sawe’s finish time shaved 65 seconds off the previous world record.
Kejelcha said after 25 miles he lost his pace, and he didn’t think he was going to make it.
But close to the finish line, he looked down at his watch and saw he was significantly under two hours. Only then did he think it was possible to do the “impossible.”
After the race, he told Sawe congratulations.
1st placed Sabastian Sawe of Team Kenya (C), 2nd placed Yomif Kejelcha of Team Ethiopia (L) and 3rd placed Jacob Kiplimo of Team Uganda (R) pose for a photo after the Men’s 2026 TCS London Marathon on April 26, 2026 in London, England.
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Still, he “of course” wants to beat his own record and then Sawe’s record. His next marathon will be 1:58, he hopes.
“It’s competition… I need to beat it,” he said.
Kejelcha said he and Sawe set a “big example” to fuel the next cohort of runners. He believes more athletes will beat the sub-two hour mark very soon.
“I ran my first (competitive) marathon in under two hours, so I think it’s an inspiration for young athletes,” he said.
Along with sheer willpower, Kejelcha said a few things pushed him to the unfathomable record-breaking pace.
First, the adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 shoes, which weigh barely more than a deck of cards. Kejelcha hailed them as “magical shoes.” He said they felt so light he didn’t even realize he was wearing them.
Second, his coaches, who believed in him even though he didn’t believe in himself.
Now, “I believe in myself,” Kejelcha said. It only took running one of the most coveted marathon times in history.
Third, his 6-month preparation at his training ground in the capital city of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, which boasts a high altitude, along with the “amazing weather” at the London Marathon on Sunday.
And finally, his wife’s cooking. (She helps him stick to his specific food program, he said)
Really, Kejelcha said, as much as people want to believe it, there’s no special sauce.
“I don’t have anything, it’s just hard work. Athletes always need discipline.”
Kejelcha said he doesn’t yet have a plan for his next race. But the half marathon is still his favorite run, despite finding it much harder than a full marathon.
“The marathon is much easier than the… half marathon,” he said, laughing.
Coming in second is not as maddening as the internet has suggested it would be for Kejechla. He still walked away with the title of fastest-ever marathon debut, and he certainly does not feel upset about anything.
“I am very happy,” Kejelcha said.
Andrea (left), Pablo (center), and Martin Langesfeld (right) hold a photograph of their daughter and sister, Nicky Langesfeld and her husband Luis Sadovnic, at a park in Doral, Fla., where the city named a street Nicky Langesfeld Place to honor her memory, Martin says, “as a reminder that she’ll be here with us forever.” Nicole “Nicky” and Luis were two of the 98 people killed when the Champlain Towers South condominium building collapsed in Surfside on June 24, 2021.
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Meredith Nierman/NPR
SURFSIDE, Fla. — Just around the corner from where a beachfront condominium collapsed five years ago, there’s a makeshift memorial: a plastic banner strung up on a wood frame, with the names of the 98 victims, ranging in age from a year-old infant to a 92-year-old grandmother.
“It’s an unfortunate reminder of how big this tragedy was,” says Martin Langesfeld, locating the name of his sister Nicky, 26, and her husband Luis Sadovnik, 28. “It’s more than just names. It’s stories. It’s families.”
Two-thirds of the 12-story Champlain Towers South building collapsed just after 1 a.m. on June 24, 2021. It started when the pool deck caved in. Seven minutes later, as many of the occupants were sleeping, the tower began to fall.
Five escaped, and three were rescued from the rubble with severe injuries by first responders. Search teams evacuated residents in the remaining part of the building, which was demolished 10 days later for safety reasons.
Search and rescue personnel work in the rubble of the 12-story, beachfront Champlain Towers South condominium that crumbled to the ground on June 24, 2021 in Surfside.
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Hundreds were left without a home and belongings, and the state was forced to grapple with how it regulates structural safety.
Langesfeld is among those who’ve been pushing to improve what they consider a lax system of building oversight. His sister and brother-in-law were newlyweds, who had moved into the condo together just a few months earlier.
“A dream place, home, where you feel you’re safest is where they were killed,” he says.
He’s also frustrated there is no permanent memorial honoring the victims, while a new luxury condo is going up on the land where Champlain Towers once stood.
“It’s been almost five years and there’s no development for the memorial,” he says. “And the development for the new building is very well underway.”
The North Tower of the Champlain Towers condominium complex stands on April 27, overlooking the vacant site where its sister building, Champlain Towers South, collapsed on June 24, 2021. The collapse resulted in 98 deaths and remains one of the largest structural failures in U.S. history. A new luxury condominium complex, the Delmore, is slated for construction on the empty lot.
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Technical findings released Monday by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded the problem started about three weeks before the collapse when two connections between garage columns and the pool deck failed, causing cracks to grow and loads to shift to connections that were not strong enough to support them.
Investigators found “severe and widespread deviations in the building’s original structural design from the codes and standards of the day,” and that the building’s construction in 1981 deviated from the design drawings. Investigators will issue a final report later that includes recommendations for changes to standards, codes and practices to improve building safety.
To date, no one has been held criminally responsible.
But in a complex civil lawsuit, more than 30 defendants contributed to a $1.2 billion class action settlement reached just a year after the collapse to address wrongful death, personal injury and property loss claims.
“I think what was apparent to all parties, legal parties, is that it was an enormous loss,” says Coral Gables attorney Rachel Wagner Furst, co-lead counsel representing the Surfside victims.
None of the settling parties admitted liability or wrongdoing, but Wagner Furst says the litigation pointed to many factors that contributed to the scope of the disaster beyond the condo board, which was singled out in the initial lawsuit for not heeding warning signs and deferring repairs on the 40-year-old building.
She notes, “Companies and individuals who had serviced the Champlain Towers South condominium building in the years before the collapse that had arguably or allegedly failed in some way to provide proper maintenance advice or counsel, including the security company that had staffed the front desk of the building and was on duty at the time that the alarm ought to have sounded.”
Attorney Rachel Wagner Furst served as co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit for the victims of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, which resulted in a $1.2 billion settlement.
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The Surfside collapse was a wake-up call for condo associations and regulators around the country.
In the immediate aftermath in South Florida, some two dozen properties were evacuated for safety concerns. Most eventually were able to return after repairs.
The state responded by passing more stringent regulations, including new mandates for structural inspections and requiring condo associations to maintain a minimum level of reserve funding for structural upkeep.
“The Florida legislature pushed the burden to create safe housing stock in Florida onto the people who are least able to bear it, which is the Florida consumer,” says Ft. Lauderdale attorney Donna DiMaggio Berger who specializes in condominium law, and founded a group that lobbies on behalf of the more than 50,000 community associations in Florida.
She says developers also should share in the burden.
“If we wind up with the safest housing stock in the country. Bravo, well done,” she says. But “safe buildings start with the people who build them and repair them.”
Construction cranes line the skyline along the beach in Surfside, Fla., on April 27.
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No matter how well-intentioned, the building reforms could have unintended consequences, says Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
She says some buildings have been taken over by people who want to turn them into more expensive, luxurious developments.
“There’s tremendous pressure that people can’t afford these things and so they’re forced to sell,” she says. “We call it ‘condo vultures,’ and it is at our peril.”
Levine Cava says she understands that people want to live “the good life” in South Florida, but there must be balance.
“We know we live in paradise,” she says. “We also know that we need to have people of all means in our community.”
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava says her community was severely changed by this tragedy, “the pain is still very real. Many people have moved on with their lives and others are still suffering greatly.”
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That’s long been the conundrum in Florida, a trend that accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic when people flocked to the Sunshine State.
And it’s evident in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach, which is becoming an ultra-wealthy enclave with a wall of condos lining the Atlantic, and more under construction. The area is adjacent to swanky shopping malls and private islands where tech titans have waterfront estates.
The Champlain Towers South property itself is soon to be home to the community’s latest luxury development, The Delmore. Billed as “expansive mansions in the sky,” the sales price of the units starts at $15 million; penthouses go for more than $150 million.
“Each penthouse has its own private pool, and that’s a glass-fronted pool that gets the view to the ocean,” says developer Jeffery Rossely, pointing to the layout on a scale model in a posh sales gallery.
Jeffery Rossely, a developer at the Dubai-based firm Damac Properties, points to a model of a luxury property called The Delmore.
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Marisa Peñaloza/NPR
Rossely is with Damac Properties, a Dubai-based firm. This is the company’s first residential project in the U.S. Damac was the only bidder with a $120 million cash offer for the property.
“It was obviously at the time a tragic opportunity, but the courts had already ordered sale of the property,” Rossely says. “The money was required to compensate the victims.”
But the project has not received a warm welcome in Surfside. At town meetings he says his company has been accused of having blood on its hands.
A sign welcoming visitors to Surfside, Fla., stands directly across the street from the former site of the Champlain Towers South condominium. Today, a new luxury residential development called The Delmore is under construction on the empty lot where the tower once stood.
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“I didn’t understand why there would be angst for someone coming in and paying that money upfront,” says Rossely.
But in retrospect, he concedes, the project needed a different approach.
“We should have spent a bit more time on due diligence, on community reaction, rather than on the physical property itself,” Rossely says. “We went through what I would call the traditional due diligence. Maybe we should have gone through emotional due diligence, as well.”
The question now is whether people will want to live in the new building. There are no buyers yet in the pre-sale phase.
Meanwhile, the town of Surfside will light a torch at 1:15 a.m. on Wednesday, just outside the development’s fence, to remember the Champlain Towers South victims five years after the collapse.
News
Trump says proof of his allegations that vandals cut Reflecting Pool paint will be provided in court
Washington — President Trump on Monday said proof will be provided in court of his allegations that vandals “cut” a massive slit in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which he claims is the reason the paint is peeling on the recently renovated but algae-plagued project.
In an exchange with CBS News senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe, Mr. Trump insisted that vandals, rather than questionable craftsmanship, are responsible for the enduring problems following the $14.7 million sealant job. The president claimed vandals cut a 350-foot slit in the pool between the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. Five people have been arrested for vandalism related to the Reflecting Pool, and five additional individuals were issued federal citations, according to the U.S. Park Police, although neither the company behind the project nor the U.S. Park Service has said a cut slit was responsible for the peeling.
Asked if he had proof, such as photos or video, that vandals used a knife to cut a massive slit in the pool, Mr. Trump responded: “Well, let’s put it this way, when you have a 350, I think it’s 350, not 250, when you have a 350-foot slit, from one end to the other, you think that’s proof? You think that’s proof?”
O’Keefe noted that reporters had been to the site and found no evidence of a slit.
“Well, you’d have to go see the Parks Department. They’ll show it to you, or see, see the secretary, but I saw it,” Mr. Trump said, likely referencing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “They cut it, they cut it very violently. The same thing with the floor, they cut it, and then they lifted it. They pulled it, and that’s what it is.”
After defending the project, the president said, “We also have pictures.”
O’Keefe asked the president for evidence of his claims.
“Yeah, at the right time you’ll see it,” Mr. Trump said. “You’ll see it in court. You’ll see it in court, but all you have to do is call the Parks Department, call the Department of Interior.”
The president also suggested someone may have placed fertilizer in the water to create the algae that teams have been attempting to clear.
“If you put fertilizer in the water, you get algae, but somebody said they might have put fertilizer, they did something to create the algae,” the president said, again without providing evidence for his claims.
CBS News has reached out to the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior. So far, there’s been no response.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which received a no-bid contract to install the sealant on the floor of the Reflecting Pool, told CBS News there are “some areas” that “require repairs.”
“These areas are a very small part of the massive 7-acre project, and do not indicate a failure of the liner,” the company said. “These repairs can not be made until the pool is drained. As soon as it’s feasible for the park, the pool will be drained and AIC will be back to make those needed repairs as part of the warranty.”
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