FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
London Marathon's Inaugural Champions to Start 35th Anniversary Race
The London Marathon's first ever champions will be the official race
starters of the 2015 Virgin Money London Marathon on Sunday 26 April.
Thirty-five years after winning the inaugural London Marathon on 29 March
1981, Dick Beardsley, Inge Simonsen and Joyce Smith will be reunited when
they push the famous red button at the 'Blue Start' on Shooters Hill,
sending some 36,000 runners and wheelchair racers off on their 26.2-mile
journey to Westminster.
Beardsley and Simonsen famously crossed the rain-swept Finish Line
hand-in-hand at the end of the inaugural elite men's race 35 years ago, a
gesture which has come to symbolise the spirit of the event and will be
celebrated this year. Neither had won a marathon before and the winning
time of 2:11:48 was a personal best for both.
Eighteen minutes later Smith won the first women's race by a huge
nine-minute margin in 2:29:57, becoming the first British woman, and the
first woman over 40, to complete the distance in less than two and a half
hours.
The three victors were followed across the Finish Line, then on
Constitution Hill, by 6,252 other runners, many of them attempting the
marathon distance for the first time. As Beardsley famously said
afterwards: "What does it matter who wins anyway? As far I'm concerned
anyone who finshes this thing is a winner" – a sentiment that survives to
this day.
All three went on to further success. Smith returned to win the event again
a year later, this time by five and a half minutes in 2:29:43, another
British record. At 44 years 195 days she was the oldest woman ever to win
the race, an achievement which is yet to be bettered.
Now 77, Smith remains involved in the London Marathon to this day. She is a
member of the board of trustees of The London Marathon Charitable Trust,
the body set up by race founders Chris Brasher and John Disley to
distribute the profits of the event to sport and recreation projects in the
capital. Her husband Bryan is a Director of the London Marathon Ltd and a
marathon coach who also helps to organise the Virgin Money Giving Mini
London Marathon, among other events.
Simonsen went on to run the New York City Marathon later that year and was
sixth in the Golden Marathon in Athens in 1982, while Beardsley continued
to set personal bests – acquiring a successive string of 13 marathon PBs in
all, a Guinness World Record that still stands. At the 1982 Boston Marathon
he was involved in a famous 'duel in the sun' with Alberto Salazar, which
he lost by a mere two seconds in 2:08:53, as both men broke the course
record and the US record.
Among the talented athletes who will set off from Blackheath this year will
be the current London Marathon champions, Wilson Kipsang and Edna Kiplagat,
the men's and women's world record holders, Dennis Kimetto and Paula
Radcliffe, plus David Weir, Britain's six-times Paralympic champion who is
going for a record seventh London Marathon wheelchair victory as one of
nearly 100 competitors in the eight IPC Athletics Marathon World
Championships races.
In all 20 London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic athletics medallists will be
racing over the famous course from Blackheath to The Mall, including four
London 2012 marathon champions.
The elites will be followed by thousands of club athletes, fun runners,
charity fund raisers, celebrities, politicians and fancy dress costume
wearers.
Dick Beardsley, Inge Simonsen and Joyce Smith will be appearing at a 35th
anniversary press conference at the Tower Hotel on Wednesday 22 April.
Details of this, and all the London Marathon's Race Week press conferences,
can be found in the Media Resources section of the London Marathon website:
www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/en-gb/news-media/media-resources
Here is a list of the official starters:
Dick Beardsley, Inge Simonsen and Joyce Smith, the inaugural London
Marathon champions
09:00 IPC Athletics Marathon World Championships Wheelchair Races, Blue
Start
09:05 Other IPC Athletics Marathon World Championships Races, Blue Start
09:20 Elite Women, Blue Start
10:10 Elite Men, Blue Start
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