London marathon comes of age

Like many great notions, the London marathon, described by race director Dave Bedford as a cross between the Olympic Games and a street carnival, resulted from a convivial chat over pints of bitter in an English pub.

After talking to harriers who had drifted in from nearby Richmond Park to The Dysart Arms, Chris Brasher, the 1956 Olympic steeplechase champion, was persuaded to run in the 1979 New York marathon.

Brasher entered, ran, finished, flew home and wrote an article in The Observer about the inspirational effect of taking part in the "greatest folk festival the world has seen".

Could, Brasher wondered, London stage such an event? "We have, of course, a wonderful course," he wrote. "But do we have the heart and hospitality to welcome the world?"

The answer was a resounding yes. The first London marathon was staged in 1981 and the race has gone since from strength to strength.

Sunday's race saw Brasher's dream fully realised. Khalid Khannouchi broke his own world record in the men's race and Paula Radcliffe clocked the second fastest women's time in her marathon debut.

DIVING SUIT

More than 33,000 people started the 42.195-km race winding around and through some of London's more famous landmarks. Of them, 32,874 finished, more people than in any other big-city marathon apart from the Boston centenary race.

The number should rise to 32,875 some time this Friday when a man in a diving suit is expected to finish. At midday on Monday, after stopping for a night's sleep, he had staggered as far as the 19th century tea clipper the Cutty Sark, 14 kms in to the race where more than 24 hours earlier Radcliffe had made her ultimately decisive break.

At five a.m. on Sunday, about 90 minutes before sunrise, Bedford was also at the Cutty Sark, attending to some final details.

Already he had guaranteed the race's success by signing Radcliffe and the Ethiopian maestro Haile Gebrselassie for the men's race. The one ingredient even the effervescent Bedford cannot guarantee was also in place.

"We had the right mix of athletes and we had incredible luck with the weather," he said on Monday, gesturing at a typical London April scene of glowering skies with a cold wind cutting the surface of the Thames.

"I mean, look at it today. When the athletes got up yesterday and when they got to the start and they saw the sun, they must have felt this was a great day and they had to grasp the moment. I don't know what the temperature was at the start but it just stayed so still."

BRITISH WINNER

Khannouchi was effusive in his praise of the London organisers. Walking gingerly after his exertions on Sunday, the Moroccan-born American, who emigrated to New York nine years ago to chase his dreams, said London was the world's top marathon. "Everybody is so hospitable," he said.

What the crowd and the millions watching on television wanted, of course, was a British winner. The personable and intelligent Radcliffe, so often doomed to disappointment on the track, gave them everything they wanted and more.

Radcliffe would surely have broken the world record if she had had any experience of the race at all and confessed she had been concerned that she had set off too early.

But there was still plenty to celebrate on Monday, including her second wedding anniversary. "My room was overflowing with champagne," she said.

Brasher was present on Sunday, clearly moved by the success of his dream.

"Chris sent a letter this morning to me saying one of the original objects was to show London could put on the greatest marathon in the world," Bedford said. "In his words: 'you certainly achieved it yesterday. Well done'."