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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Ben Bloom in Gothenburg

Sawe’s secret sauce: inside the lab that fuelled historic sub-two hour marathon

Maurten sports scientist Alexandre Guillaume monitors Ben Bloom at the headquarters of Swedish sports nutrition company in Gothenburg.
Maurten sports scientist Alexandre Guillaume monitors Ben Bloom at the headquarters of Swedish sports nutrition company in Gothenburg. Photograph: Paul Wennerholm/The Guardian

Inside an unremarkable Gothenburg office building rented from the local university are a series of conference spaces named after the modern greats of distance running. There is the Eliud Kipchoge room, the Keely Hodgkinson room and, the latest addition, the Sabastian Sawe room, in homage to the man who recently redefined the limits of human endurance.

When Sawe last month in London became the first person to run an official marathon in under two hours, much of the coverage focused on the Kenyan’s carbon-plated shoes. But here, on the west coast of Sweden, a team of scientists, nutritionists and technicians believe another factor was just as significant, if not more so.

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