Cornwell earns Metro photo with Olympic Stadium win

Sunday saw the National Lottery Anniversary Run, held over 5 miles around the Olympic Park in Stratford and finishing in the Olympic Stadium. It was a similar idea to the race held last year prior to the Games, with a ballot-based entry, which saw our athletes Tomaz Plibersek (2nd) and Tom Beedell (3rd) on the podium. This year we went one better as Alex Cornwell broke the tape first in front of thousands of spectators and ahead of around 10,000 runners. He also earned himself huge coverage in the free Metro newspaper distributed throughout the capital, including a wonderful picture of him breaking the tape.

Feature with photograph in the Metro newspaper

His 25mins 40secs put him 25 seconds clear of Chelmsford's Ryan Prout. In fact, less than 24 hours earlier Cornwell had gone 26th on the national 3000m ranking as he improved his PB to 8m09.50 in Oxford - a finer performance in real terms but one which was unaccompanied by the razzmatazz which is part and parcel of these Lottery events. His victory brought him a superb trophy, a visit to the hospitality suite accompanied by his personal invitees, and a photo opportunity with girl group Little Mix. (Or was it the girls whose opportunity it was!?

This year Tomaz Plibersek, just resuming serious training after spending a year in a globe-trotting role, had to settle for 4th, in 26.24, and Lorcan Murphy was 18th in 27.47. Other Woodford performances included: M55 Alistair Holford (1020, 36.09), M50 Tom Spanyol (1047, 36.16), our only female athlete M45 Alex Wardle (1170, 36.43), Nick Dowsett (2630, 40.39) and Stuart Phillips (3934, 43.38).