Running in only his third marathon, the 23-year-old beat the mark by more than 30 seconds.

Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum shattered the men’s marathon world record in Chicago on Sunday, winning in 2:00:35 to beat famed Eliud Kipchoge’s previous mark by over 30 seconds.

In a post-race interview, the 23-year-old long-distance runner said he was surprised by his feat.

“I feel so happy. I was prepared, I knew I was coming for a course record, but fortunately [it was], a world record,” he said. “A world record was not in my mind today, but I knew one time, one day, I’d be a world-record holder. In the future, I know I can run two hours,” Kiptum added.

Kiptum’s performance at the Chicago track makes him the first human being to run a marathon in under 2 hours and one minute.

Completing the race almost three and a half minutes ahead of anyone else, Kiptum finished ahead of Kenya’s Benson Kipruto and Belgium’s Bashi Abdi, who placed third.

Appearing in his third marathon, Kiptum holds the second-fastest time in history after clocking 2:01:25 to win the London marathon.

In December 2022, Kiptum debuted at his first Valencia Marathon marathon. The speed racer finished with a time of 2:01:53, some 44 seconds shy of the men’s world record.

At the Chicago Marathon, Sifan Hassan broke the women’s course record at 2:13:38, the second-fastest-ever race. The Ethiopian-born Dutch middle- and long-distance runner debuted at her first US marathon.

“I was broken, I was in pain. I said: ‘I’m never running a marathon again’. I just wanted to stop,” Hassan said in her post-race interview.

“I’m not a morning person and it was cold,” she said. “It was so hard. I couldn’t get warm. It only started to feel a bit better after five kilometres,” Hassan added.