Sabastian Sawe pulled out of the Berlin Marathon with a shin stress fracture on August 27. Here is who moved in, who moved out, and what the men's race looks like now.
Pictures from Getty Images
On the morning of 27 August 2026, race organisers at SCC Events published a short statement.
Defending champion Sabastian Sawe, the man who ran the first sub-two-hour marathon in a record-eligible race, would not be starting in Berlin on 27 September.
A stress fracture in his right shin. Recovery timeline: next spring.
One line, one absence, and the men's race at the fastest marathon in the world quietly lost its headline.
What Berlin was supposed to be
Sunday was set up to be an event.
Sawe, 31, was returning to the course where he won last year in 2:02:16, in heat that reached 25°C.
His London run in April had been the story of the year in distance running: 1:59:30, seven years after the Ineos 1:59 Challenge.
This time it happened in an ordinary race with pacemakers and drinks tables and a legal certificate at the end.
He had told organisers he wanted to "run as well and fast as possible" in Berlin.
He never used the words world record, but no one on the course would have believed him if he had.
Then came the withdrawal
Sawe posted the news himself on Instagram, in a short handwritten-sounding note.
"It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that I am forced to withdraw from the Berlin Marathon due to injury," he wrote.
"I had been looking forward to achieving something special on the streets of Berlin and crossing the finish line at the Brandenburg Gate."
Organisers did not name a replacement.
Which, as anyone who follows this sport closely will tell you, was the honest move. There was nobody in the phone book at that late notice who could carry the same story.
What a shin stress fracture actually means
The nature of the injury is important.
Sawe's agent told LetsRun.com he is not expected back to racing until spring 2027.
That timeline sits alongside another quiet consequence: every world record attempt at Berlin for the rest of this cycle now belongs to somebody else.
The Bekele swap that almost worked
Two weeks after Sawe's note, organisers announced the swap they hoped would rescue the men's field.
Kenenisa Bekele, at 44, would return to the race he won twice, in 2016 (2:03:03) and in 2019 (2:01:41, two seconds shy of the then world record).
The Ethiopian is the greatest distance runner in history by almost any measure.
Three Olympic gold medals on the track, former 5000m and 10,000m world record holder.
His name alone made Berlin a headline again.
And then it did not
In one of his last training sessions before flying to Berlin, Bekele injured his left Achilles tendon. He withdrew on 24 September, three days out.
Organisers wrote just two sentences on it, calling it "bad luck."
Bekele's marathon career has been a story of bad luck for more than a decade, cycling through hamstring, calf and Achilles problems since a rupture in 2010.
His last completed marathon was Paris 2024, where he finished 39th.
So who is actually going to win this thing
The answer, honestly, is that nobody knows.
Berlin's men's field is still stacked in the abstract.
Seven runners have personal bests inside 2:05:00, and roughly thirty are inside 2:08:00.
The problem is not depth. The problem is that the top of the field lost both of the names that made a betting line reasonable.
The four Ethiopians most likely to win
Getaneh Molla brings the fastest personal best in the remaining field, 2:03:34, set in Dubai back in 2019.
That is old form though, and he has not touched it since.
Shura Kitata is the freshest name. He won Seville in February in 2:03:59, a photo-finish so tight the judges had to check the still image to separate him from Asrar Abderehman.
Guye Adola is the sentimental pick.
Now 35, he finished second to Eliud Kipchoge on his marathon debut in Berlin in 2017 at 2:03:46, and he won this race outright in 2021 in 2:05:45.
He knows every metre of the course.
Selemon Barega is the wildcard. The Tokyo Olympic 10,000m champion has run only two marathons, both fast (2:05:15 and 2:05:00), neither of them a win.
The Japanese pacing bloc
Fourteen Japanese runners are on the start list with personal bests between roughly 2:06 and 2:08.
That is a pacing wall large enough to drag a national record out of somebody.
Nobody is talking about them, which is often when the interesting result quietly happens.
What Berlin still is
The forecast on Sunday is close to perfect: 13°C at the 8:45 a.m. start, 17.5°C by the elite finish, low wind.
Berlin has produced 13 world records in its history.
Thirteen women on the start list have personal bests inside 2:22:00, more than ever before at this race.
The story on the men's side, though, is now the story of what happened before the gun.
Two big names announced Berlin. Neither one of them will be on the road when it goes off.
For you, watching from anywhere in the world, the men's race is now genuinely unpredictable.
That is not always bad. Some of the best Berlin finishes ever happened in years when the outright favourite was missing.
The gun still goes at 8:45 a.m. local. The road is still flat.
The story is just written a little more openly now.
