Quick Facts
- Athlete: Yomif Kejelcha (Ethiopia)
- Race: Media Maratón Ciudad de Buenos Aires (World Athletics Label)
- Date: 23 August 2026
- New WR: 56:51 (pending World Athletics ratification)
- Previous WR: 57:20 — Jacob Kiplimo, Lisbon, March 2026 (also pending ratification)
- Margin: 29 seconds — the biggest single improvement in over a decade
- Conditions: 6°C at start, flat course through central Buenos Aires
- Women’s winner: Fotyen Tesfay (Ethiopia) — 1:03:57
The half marathon world record has been a strange, contested, almost soap-operatic thing for the past two years. Times set and not ratified. A barrier lowered by one second, then another second. A 56:42 in Barcelona that World Athletics couldn’t officially count because the race didn’t tick every regulatory box. The books have been a mess. Then, on a 6-degree Sunday morning in Buenos Aires, Yomif Kejelcha went out and made all of it irrelevant.
56:51. Twenty-nine seconds faster than the pending world record. A pace of 4:20 per mile across 21.097 kilometres, solo for the last 14 of them. The greatest margin of improvement in the men’s half marathon world record in a very long time, and it came from a man who has spent the last 12 months casually breaking every long-distance benchmark he can find.
How the Race Went
Kejelcha’s race plan was not complicated. He broke from the field at 7K, opened a gap that never closed and ran the rest alone. By the time the rest of the elite field — Tadese Worku, Bereket Nega, Jonathan Kipkoech Kamosong — were coming through in the 59 and 60-minute range, Kejelcha had been finished for close to three minutes. His net time was actually 56:50. World records are set on official gun time, hence 56:51, but either way the number is astonishing.
Worku finished second in 59:20. Nega was third in 1:00:20, Kamosong fourth in 1:00:21. Ignacio Erario was the first Argentine home in 1:00:59, just six seconds outside the national record. Fotyen Tesfay dominated the women’s race in 1:03:57.
Worth noting: the rest of the field didn’t run particularly fast by the standards of this race. Nega’s 1:00:20 was 37 seconds slower than his run in March. Third place was over 20 seconds slower than third place in Buenos Aires a year ago. This wasn’t a day when conditions conspired to produce fast times across the board. Kejelcha just ran 56:51 by himself.
The Record That Wouldn’t Sit Still
To understand why today’s run matters beyond the raw time, you need a quick recap of what’s been happening at the top of the men’s half marathon since 2024.
| Time | Athlete | Race | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 57:31 | Jacob Kiplimo (UGA) | Lisbon, 2021 | Nov 2021 | Ratified WR (at time) |
| 57:30 | Yomif Kejelcha (ETH) | Valencia | Oct 2024 | Ratified WR |
| 56:42 | Jacob Kiplimo (UGA) | Barcelona | 2025 | Not ratified (course non-compliance) |
| 57:20 | Jacob Kiplimo (UGA) | Lisbon | Mar 2026 | Pending ratification |
| 56:51 | Yomif Kejelcha (ETH) | Buenos Aires | 23 Aug 2026 | Pending ratification |
Who Is Yomif Kejelcha and Why Is He Doing This
If you follow road running, you know the name. If you’re newer to the sport, here’s what makes today’s run feel almost unreal in context.
Kejelcha is 29 years old, born in the Oromia region of Ethiopia on 1 August 1997. He began his senior career as a track specialist: world indoor mile champion, world indoor 3000m champion, silver medallist in the 10,000m at the 2019 World Championships. His indoor mile world record of 3:47.01, set in Boston in 2019, still stands. He also holds the road 10K world record at 26:31.
The jump to road racing came gradually. His half marathon debut produced a record. Then at the 2026 London Marathon in April, in his first ever marathon, he ran 1:59:41. Sabastian Sawe of Kenya had just become the first man in history to officially break two hours with 1:59:30. Kejelcha crossed the line 11 seconds later — on his debut — with what would have been a marathon world record on literally any other day in history.
Now he holds (pending ratification) the half marathon world record again, the 10K road world record and the indoor mile world record. He is the second-fastest marathon runner alive. He is doing this across a range of distances that no single athlete in the modern era has owned simultaneously. It is not hyperbole to say we are watching something genuinely rare.
The Buenos Aires Stage
The Media Maratón Ciudad de Buenos Aires — or the 21K Buenos Aires as it’s locally known — is not a course that runners outside South America talk about enough. It’s a flat, fast loop through the heart of the Argentine capital, starting and finishing in Palermo at Avenida Figueroa Alcorta and Avenida Dorrego, winding past the Obelisco, Teatro Colón and the Casa Rosada. The 2026 edition sold out its field of 31,500 runners before race day.
Last year, Jacob Kiplimo ran 58:29 here — a course record and the fastest half marathon ever run in the Americas at the time. Twelve months later, Kejelcha went 1 minute 38 seconds faster. The course clearly suits speed. It may start getting more international attention now.
What 56:51 Actually Means for the Sport
For a few years the consensus among elite athletics watchers was that 57 minutes was roughly the floor for the half marathon — the kind of time that required a perfect day, perfect pacing and an athlete at absolute peak. The sub-57 barrier fell in Valencia in October 2024 when Kejelcha ran 57:30. That felt significant.
Today’s run shifts the conversation entirely. 56:51 puts sub-57 in the same category as sub-60. It’s no longer the frontier; it’s the baseline for a world record attempt. The question now is whether 56:30 is reachable, whether Kiplimo’s unratified 56:42 from Barcelona last year was a preview of where this event is heading, and how long before the 56-minute mark itself becomes a talking point.
Super-shoe technology has clearly played a role in the compression of road times across all distances. But the bigger factor here is that the depth of Ethiopian and Kenyan distance running has reached a point where athletes with world-class track pedigree are stepping onto road courses and treating them like time trials. Kejelcha is the sharpest example of that, but he won’t be the last.
What Comes Next
Kejelcha is now a serious contender for every major road race on the calendar regardless of distance. The question his team will face is whether to defend his half marathon dominance on the circuit — Valencia in October is an obvious target — or return to the marathon and try to actually set the record outright rather than finish second to Sawe.
Kiplimo, for his part, is still the most dangerous rival in this event. He ran a faster time in Barcelona last year and it didn’t count. He’ll want that record back. The Kejelcha vs Kiplimo rivalry across the half marathon and marathon distances is the most compelling storyline in road running right now, and it’s far from resolved.
For Buenos Aires itself, today’s result is a statement of intent as a major race destination. A World Athletics Label event that just hosted a (pending) world record, with a sold-out field of over 31,000, in a city that is increasingly serious about professional road running infrastructure. Put it on your radar.