London Marathon: the unknown who outran the elite
“Josh Griffiths woke up on Sunday morning as an unknown club runner without a job, a coach or any experience of running marathons,” said Riath Al-samarrai in the Daily Mail. By midday, he had qualified to represent Britain in this summer’s athletics world championships – and “delivered one of the great tales” in the history of the London Marathon. Competitors who run from the mass start are not meant to “pull away from the rank and file” and then “catch the elite runners”, particularly in their first marathon. But that’s exactly what the 23-year-old student did. By the time he reached the finishing line, just 2hrs 14mins 49secs after he set off, he was in 13th place – one spot behind Feyisa Lilesa, who took silver in the Olympic marathon last summer. He finished ahead of the other British runners, a showing good enough to earn him a place in Team GB. Griffiths was as surprised as anyone, said Ben Bloom in The Daily Telegraph. He’s accustomed to racing in “humble park runs”, not huge competitions. While most elite athletes spent the winter at warm-weather altitude training camps, he coached himself: he ran up and down the hills of west Wales, where he lives while studying for a master’s, covering more than 100 miles a week.
The women’s elite race may have been a more predictable affair, but it was just as exciting, said Sean Ingle in The Guardian. Mary Keitany, who had won twice before in London, produced a “bravura performance” to cross the line in 2hrs 17mins 1sec – the second-fastest time ever run by a woman. The 35-year-old Kenyan powered through the first 5km in just 15mins 31secs, a time that would have placed her 14th in the 5,000m Olympic final last year. And, “for good measure”, Keitany completed the first 30km of the 42km race so quickly that she set a new world record for that distance.