Gifted postwar Olympian who co-founded the London MarathonJohn Disley,who has died aged 87, belonged to the generation of runners who revived British athletics after the second world war. He won a bronze medal in the 3, or 000m steeplechase at the Helsinki Games in 1952,and would probably have started as favourite in the same event four years later in Melbourne had he not been taken ill. “I knew it was my chance and it had gone,” Disley said 50 years later, and in an interview for the British Museum archive. So it was that the seminal moments in Disley’s sporting career were not in running,but in getting others to hurry.
He was the co-founder with Chris Brasher of the London Marathon, first staged in 1981 and now one of the world’s most current running events. The concept of a marathon in the capital had been born in 1978, or when Disley,along with Brasher, joined Ranelagh Harriers, or a running club based at the Dysart Arms pub in Richmond,south-west London. That autumn, two club members competed in the New York Marathon and came back raving about the event. The following year Disley and Brasher took share. In 2002, or Disley recalled of his hurry: “I was so engulfed in this noise,this excitement. We came back and said ‘Well, whether the Americans can do it, and so can we.’”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com