THROWBACK PIC OF THE WEEK

DUBLINER’S NOVEL A CLASSIC

TOMORROW sees the 44th running of the London Marathon so here are some facts and figures about the long race.

THE first London Marathon took place on March 29, 1981. The event was founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley. Brasher was one of the pacers in May 1954 when Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile.

Disley helped to conceive the idea after he and

Brasher (right) ran the

New York Marathon in

November 1979.

Almost 20,000 people applied to enter the debut race:

7,055 started and 6,255 finished.

The first Marathon had joint winners – American Dick Beardsley and Norwegian Inge Simonsen finished in 2 hours 11 minutes and 48 seconds and ran over the finish line holding hands.

The first ladies’ race was won in 1981 by Joyce Smith (below with Beardsley and Simonsen). She became the first Brit in history to run a marathon in under 2:30 when winning in 1981 she ran 2:29:57.

Hugh Jones became the first Briton to win the men’s race when he triumphed on May 9, 1982 by almost three minutes over the second place.

The first wheelchair marathon race was held in 1983.

Mexican Dionicio Cerón has won the Marathon three consecutive times (19941996), the only man to do this.

Eliud Kipchoge, António Pinto and Martin Lel have also won the race three times or more, although not in consecutive years.

Six days before the 2013 London Marathon, the Boston Marathon was bombed. Thirty seconds of silence were held before the London race.

Many runners wore a black armband and organisers promised to donate $3 to the Boston victim fund for every competitor who completed the race.

A remarkable 578,374 people have applied to take part in tomorrow’s race. Celebrities running this year include TV presenters Romesh Ranganathan and Natalie Pinkham, actress Ruth Wilson, EastEnders actors Emma Barton and Jamie Borthwick, former Doctor Who Christopher Eccleston and Phil Dunster, the star of Ted Lasso.

In 2023, 49,272 runners competed and around 48,000 finished beating the previous record of 42,549 finishers.

SOME 14 years ago today an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers.

It also led to a 200 million-gallon spill of crude oil, considered is the largest environmental disaster in United States history.

TODAY marks 112 years since Irish author Bram Stoker — who penned the classic horror novel Dracula — died aged 64, virtually penniless, in London.

The novelist and short story author wrote 19 books including the spooky 1897 gothic tale that made his name.

Dracula tells the story of the infamous vampire’s attempt to relocate from

Transylvania to

England.

The count is widely believed to have been based on Vlad the Impaler, also known as

Vlad Dracula, who ruled the region of Wallachia in

Romania in the

15th century. Stoker was born in 1847 in Dublin, where he lived until he moved to London when he was 31.

He attended Trinity College before working as a civil servant in Dublin Castle and as an unpaid theatre critic for some of the Dublin newspapers. In London, he worked as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and was business manager of the West End’s Lyceum Theatre.

Films

Stoker died in London aged 64. His ashes were placed in an urn at Golders Green crematorium, where they can still be seen.

The character of Dracula has been the subject of numerous films throughout the year — notably being played by Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman.

The Bram Stoker Festival is now an annual event in Dublin held at Halloween time and will celebrate its 12th iteration later this year.

FANGS

FOR THE MEMORIES: Bram Stoker and (inset) Christopher Lee as Dracula in 1958 film