London Marathon roles reversed

Paralympic champion Kurt Fearnley set a new course record as he ended David Weir’s run of successive London Marathon victories.

The Australian emerged victorious by one second after a pulsating sprint finish down The Mall, which bore a striking resemblance to the conclusion of the 2008 race, although this time with the positions reversed.

On a glorious April day, Fearnley and London-born Weir hit the front early on, along with South African Ernst Van Dyk, and Switzerland’s Heinz Frei.

The quartet remained in contention for the majority of the race, with nearest challengers Denis Lemeunier and Masazumi Soejima almost 40 seconds behind.

Approaching the line, Van Dyk was the racer in pole, but Fearnley and Weir sprinted agonisingly past to take first and second.

Fearnley’s time of 1:28:56 took 49 seconds off the course record, set in 2006 by Weir.

Weir, who was competing in his first race since the 1500m final in Beijing last summer, said his lack of training had been a factor in him not claiming his fourth successive London title.

He said: “It wasn’t too bad a result as I have only been back in my chair in the last two months.

“I had a break after Beijing and I have had limited amounts of training. All of these guys are doing marathons every other week. I can only do two in a year. At the end I didn’t have a little bit extra to fight for the win.”

Fearnley said he hadn’t been involved in too many marathons “where the finish was that close.”

He added: “David was a tough challenger, but I was never going to let him get away with that.

“When it came to the last 200 metres, I kept thinking about the finish and pushed really hard. It’s been a hard last four months training but it came good in the end”.

There was British disappointment too in the women’s race, with Shelly Woods having to be content with finishing down in sixth position.

In what proved to be another close race decided by a sprint finish, American Amanda McGrory crossed the line in 1:50:39, a second ahead of 2008 champion Sandra Graf.

Despite finishing sixth, Woods was only seven seconds behind McGrory at the line.

McGrory said: “I knew it was going to be a tactical race today.

“There was a pack of six when we started and there were still six fighting it out at the finish.”

Canadian Diane Roy,who crashed spectacularly in Beijing, said that incident had played on her mind heading into the London race, where she finished third.

“This is my first time in London and I was pretty scared going into this race after Beijing where I had a crash,” she said.

“I was more careful going round the corner today into the final straight. Next time I will be more confident”.

Paralympic gold medallist Edith Hunkeler finished in fourth.