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Paralympians Michael Roeger and Jaryd Clifford have both broken marathon world records in Sydney.
Australian Paralympic stars Michael Roeger and Jaryd Clifford have broken the world records in their respective classes at the Tokyo Games qualifying marathon in Sydney.
Roeger recorded his fourth consecutive marathon world record in the T46 class with a time of two hours 18 minutes and 52 seconds, slashing 40 seconds off his personal best.
The 32-year-old is the hot favourite to win marathon gold at the Tokyo Paralympics in August.
"I wasn't quite confident in that last six kilometres," said Roeger, whose previous marathon was in Houston back in January 2020.
"My legs were cramping but I just had to hold it together.
"Now I've got 2:18 next to my name, and that's giving me loads of confidence in these last few months of training.
"I'll now reset and respect the distance and then do the Gold Coast half-marathon.
"Then it's all roads to Tokyo."
On his marathon debut, the versatile Clifford was stunned to clock 2:19:08 in the T12 class for vision-impaired athletes.
He entered the race as a pacemaker for Roeger but was able to complete the distance in style, stripping almost two and a half minutes off the previous world record set by El Amin Chentouf of Morocco in 2015.
"I came out here and just wanted to get Roegs as far as possible," he said.
"I think he asked me at 15K how many laps I had left in me, and I think I said I had two.
"Then I had one more, and then another.
"I feel a bit silly upon reflection, but I think psychologically all I was doing throughout the race was focus on Roegs who is going for the gold medal at the Paralympics in Tokyo."
Despite his stunning run on Sunday, Clifford still intends to focus on the 1500m and 5000m at the Tokyo Paralympics.