UNKNOWN GRIFFITHS LANDS SPOT AT WORLDS
JOSH GRIFFITHS woke up yesterday morning as an unknown club runner without a job, a coach or any experience of running marathons. By midday, he had qualified to represent Britain at August’s World Championships and delivered one of the great tales in the history of this race. Those who run from the mass start are not meant to do what Griffiths did, which was to pull away from the rank-and-file of good amateurs and then catch the elite runners. But not only did this 23-year-old student from Cross Hands in Wales catch those in front, he passed them. And then he passed some more. When he finished, after two hours, 14 minutes and 49 seconds, he was in 13th place, one spot behind Feyisa Lilesa, the Olympic silver medallist from Ethiopia, and ahead of each of the 11 Brits in the elite field. Remarkably, it was his first attempt at a marathon, and the scale of the achievement truly dawned on him at the line when he realised he had won a place at the Worlds in London. ‘I really can’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I was in the mass start and we started about ten metres behind the elite field but, obviously, that was never really in my mind to race those guys. ‘I started to catch the elite British guys up about mile 13 and I was running with people I’d looked up to. I couldn’t quite believe it and then, all of a sudden, I was pulling away. ‘By mile 18, I was in second place of the British runners and I kept working my way through. Until I crossed the line, I never quite believed what had happened. It hasn’t sunk in. ‘My aim was to run the time that might qualify me for the Welsh Commonwealth Games team but the World Championships never entered my mind.’ To date, his running career had peaked with a few Welsh vests for cross country, dotted around races for Swansea Harriers and his studies. More recently, he has been filing job applications ahead of his graduation from a sports coaching masters at Cardiff Metropolitan University. ‘I was aiming to get this race done then properly look for a job,’ he added. ‘I had no plans for August and now I am going to the World Championships!’ The men’s elite race was won by Kenya’s Daniel Wanjiru, who held off a resurgence from the great Kenenisa Bekele — the world-record holder at 5,000m and 10,000m — to take his first London title.