My Account | Please log in 
 Click here for Irish website and  Euro prices Click here for UK website and  Pound Sterling (GBP) prices
Related Stories

Lance Armstrong gets celebrity pacemakers

Amid the biggest media circus to surround a celebrity runner Lance Armstrong will run the New York City Marathon on Sunday.

The seven time Tour De France champ has enlisted the help of former marathon champions Alberto Salazar and Joan Benoit Samuelson, plus the 1500m/5K double Olympic champion Hicham El Guerrouj.

The 48-year-old Salazar will kick off by running the first 10 miles of the race with Armstrong. Then 49-year-old Samuelson, who became a US distance legend by winning the first ever women’s Olympic marathon (and on US soil) at the 1984 Games, will take him the next 10 miles. Finally El Guerrouj run the next six miles with Armstrong leaving him 0.2 miles of the whole race to run on his own.

While some have been making outrageous claims about what he will run (Lance himself is staying more conservative) any time Lance runs would not be ratified as any kind of record due to the set up of celebrity pacers he will be getting on route.

Rules state that pacemakers must not be lapped runners and cannot be people joining at intermediate points as Samuelson and El Guerrouj will be doing.