CLUB RUNNER STUNS ELITE
Joy as Josh 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-yearold student from Cross Hands, west Wales, catch those in front, but he passed them. and then he passed some more. and then some more again.
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 e 11 Brits in the elite field.
Remarkably, it was his first t attempt at a marathon, and d the scale of the achievement t truly dawned on him at the e line when he realised he had won a place at the Worlds in London. there is a fair chancee that those who miss out will ll have never heard of him.
‘i really can’t believe it,’ Grifffiths said. ‘My group started d about 10 metres behind thee elite field, but obviously thatat was never really in my mind to race those guys.
‘i started to catch up the elite British guys 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 and 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.’
From the finish line, Griffiths went to track down his parents, who have both run marathons in the region of three hours, for a debrief on the strangest of days. Griffiths rose at 5am on race day and swallowed down a breakfast of rice and salmon before catching a 6.45am train from London Bridge to Black heath for the start.
‘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,’ he said.
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 want to get into the sports field, athletics ideally,’ Griffiths said. ‘i was aiming to get this race done and then properly lookl for a job. i had no plans for august and now i am going to the World Championships!
‘i’ve been running since i was about 14 and running competitively and seriously for about s six or seven years now. Every y year gets better and better.
‘i’ve been coaching myself. i i’ve never been on an altitude training camp. i just train on the roads and cycle tracks near the house.
‘this was my first marathon so i never really knew what to expect. to do this is beyond my wildest dreams.’
the men’s elite race was won by Kenya’s Daniel Wanjiru, who held off a resurgence from the great Kenenisa Bekele to take his first London title.
Bekele, the world- record holder at 5,000m and 10,000m, was looking for the marathon win that would strengthen claims that he is the greatest distance runner of all time.
Upon finishing second he cited problems with his trainers, saying he suffered blisters in addition to hamstring problems.
Something of an elite grumble on a day that belonged to a Welsh amateur.