en.Wedoany.com Reported - Honor Device Co., Ltd. officially announced on May 17 that Kenyan long-distance running star Sabastian Sawe, the first human in history to run a full marathon in under two hours in an official race, has been appointed as "Honor Global Chief Running Officer." That afternoon, Sawe issued a public challenge via video to Honor's self-developed humanoid robot "Flash," expressing his hope to stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the starting line and compete in the future.
Less than a month earlier, on April 26, Sawe crossed the finish line at the 2026 London Marathon with a time of 1:59:30, becoming the first athlete in human marathon history to break the two-hour barrier in an official race, simultaneously slashing the previous world record by a massive 65 seconds. The runner-up, Ethiopian athlete Kjelcha, also broke the two-hour mark with a time of 1:59:41. Together in London, the two runners pushed the boundaries of human endurance sports a step further. Previously, the marathon world record was held by the late Kenyan great Kiptum, set in 2023 at 2:00:35, but Sawe compressed the human limit by over a minute in London.
The target of Sawe's challenge this time is not a human opponent, but the humanoid robot "Flash," built with Honor's full-stack self-developed technology. On April 19, a week before the London Marathon, "Flash" won the 2026 Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Robot Half Marathon with a net time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds. This result significantly surpassed the human men's half marathon world record of 57:20 set by Ugandan athlete Kiplimo in March this year, beating it by about 7 minutes. Even more noteworthy for outside observers was that the top six finishers in the race were all swept by robots under Honor, with all six competing "Flash" units finishing within the human world record line. Compared to the winning time of 2:40:42 at the inaugural humanoid robot half marathon a year ago, "Flash" shortened the course record by nearly two hours. This leap forward is backed by concentrated breakthroughs in liquid cooling systems, high-torque joints, and autonomous navigation algorithms.
In his challenge video, Sawe offered a philosophically rich comparison. He admitted that it took humanity 118 years to run a full marathon in under two hours, whereas Honor's "Flash" took only about 8 months from project initiation to breaking the human half-marathon record. "Humans and technology, it's never been about one replacing the other—we run forward, and it runs forward; we break through our own limits, and it redefines the boundaries of possibility." Sawe posed the question: "I really want to know, how long will it take 'Flash'?" He clearly stated his anticipation of standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the starting line in the future, giving it his all to compete.
The venue chosen for this human-machine dialogue across distance was the campus of Nanjing University. On May 17, Honor's robot half-marathon team appeared at Nanjing University, officially launching the first stop of the "Run, Robots" university tour. On site, "Flash" and another robot, "Yuanqi Zai," engaged in multi-scenario interactions with NJU students, including running races, creative photo ops, and impromptu dancing. The two robots demonstrated agile motion control and real-time environmental perception capabilities in the complex campus environment. Sawe sent his best wishes to the graduating students of NJU via video and conveyed to the students the athletic spirit of constantly breaking through limits. On the campus grounds on the eve of graduation season, a highly symbolic handshake across distance was completed between an athlete who set a human endurance record and a robot that broke a machine speed record.
From a technical pathway perspective, "Flash's" track performance is not a one-off experimental breakthrough, but the result of the continuous iteration of Honor's embodied intelligence technology system. The robot's head is equipped with an electronic antenna and LiDAR, enabling stable reception of navigation signals; its back integrates a self-developed liquid cooling system, where liquid cooling pipes go deep into the motor to carry away heat, and a high-power liquid pump achieves a heat exchange flow rate of over 4 liters per minute, solving the heat dissipation bottleneck under high-load motion states. This cooling solution allows "Flash" to complete the entire 21-kilometer race with only one battery change, with a single battery supporting a range of over 10 kilometers. Honor revealed that the next step for its embodied intelligence business will be to drive robots from the competitive track into practical commercial scenarios such as guided tours and shopping assistance, inspection, and consumer companionship, accelerating the shift from showcasing technology to practical utility.
By simultaneously announcing the Global Chief Running Officer and facilitating a public challenge between human and robot champions, Honor's intent goes beyond mere brand communication. By placing the breaker of human limits and the breaker of machine limits within the same conversational framework, Honor attempts to convey the core proposition of its "Augmented Human Intelligence" philosophy: the ultimate meaning of AI is not to replace humans, but to serve, accompany, and enable humans, driving a dual leap in AI intelligence and lifelike vitality. The "Run, Robots" university tour will subsequently visit multiple universities nationwide. Through the narrative of "human champions and machine champions running side-by-side," Honor is trying to build a more relatable cognitive foundation for embodied intelligence among the youth. From "human vs. machine showdown" to "human and machine running together," what unfolds on this track may be more than just a race.
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