With steeplechaser Dorcus Inzikuru following 15-year old Plymouth College 50m freestyle swimmer Jamila Lunkuse today, Ugandan Jane Suuto is the second last female athlete left in battle for honours at the London Olympics. She will run in the 42.195km marathon race tomorrow that starts at The Mall. Suuto, the national record holder earned a ticket to the Games after clocking 2:42:07 to finish third at the Nordea Riga Marathon in Latvia back in May. She will compete against 117 other athletes who include Kenyan trio Mary Keitany, Edna Kiplagat and Prisca Jeptoo. Keitany hold the current world leading time of 2:18:37 which she ran in London four months ago.
Kiplagat won the Los Angeles Marathon in 2010, only her second marathon ever, and went on to win the 2010 New York City Marathon. She ran a career best of 1:09:00 at the New York City Half Marathon, finishing as runner-up behind Caroline Rotich. She took on Keitany again at the 2011 London Marathon, but was outrun by her domestic rival.
Marathon Course
The marathon will start half-way along The Mall and, heading away from Buckingham Palace will proceed through Admiralty Arch and past Nelson’s Column on Trafalgar Square. On the first lap the runners will turn right and continue along the Victoria Embankment, on subsequent laps they will turn left and pass under the Hungerford Bridge and follow the River Thames on its downstream path. The Embankment is the longest “straight” stretch in the race, about 1,500 m (nearly a mile) on the outbound leg and 2,100 m on the return leg. It leads the runners past Cleopatra’s Needle and the heraldic lions that symbolically defend the limits of the City of London.
After Blackfriars station (at the end of the Embankment), the course climbs Puddle Dock, a short but steep 16m hill from Upper Thames Street to Queen Victoria Street which is paved with cobblestones, before reaching the race’s highest point of 18 metres on Ludgate Hill close to the south portal of St Paul’s Cathedral.
The route passes around the west end of the cathedral, across Paternoster Square, behind St Bartholomew’s Hospital and eventually along a winding route including St. Martin’s Le Grand, onto Cheapside. On the third lap, runners will cross the half way mark within sight of St Mary-le-Bow and within earshot of the “Bow Bells”. Leaving Cheapside, the route then goes through the heart of the City, past the offices of many of the world’s best known (and lesser known) banks into the Guildhall Yard, home of the Corporation of London.
From the Guildhall, the route passes the Bank of England at Bank junction and down Cornhill, passing the Royal Exchange. At the end of Cornhill, continuing onto a small portion of Leadenhall Street, a right-turn takes the runners into the covered Leadenhall Market. Competitors then make their way onto Eastcheap, via Fenchurch Street and Grace church Street, and on towards the Tower of London.
On Tower Hill, a short distance from the Tower’s moat, the course makes a U-turn back to Lower Thames Street at the start of the return leg. Leaving Lower Thames Street, the route reaches The Monument dedicated to the Great Fire of London.
After The Monument, the return leg has far fewer bends than the outward leg, as it takes the runners along the relatively straight and flat 1,600 m stretch following Cannon Street and back onto Queen Victoria Street. An S-bend takes the runners back onto the Victoria Embankment, at the far end of which are the Houses of Parliament.
About 600 m before the end of the embankment, they rejoin the route taken on the first lap and pass the London Eye on the opposite side of the river. On the first lap, runners turn left onto Westminster Bridge, making a U-turn on the bridge before rejoining the main route.
On the other laps, runners turn right at the end of the Embankment, and continue past Big Ben and Parliament Square and towards Buckingham Palace via Birdcage Walk on the periphery of St. James Park.
As the runners approach the palace, another right turn brings the Victoria Memorial into view. The memorial, at the western end of the kilometre-long Mall brings them past the start line which, on the last circuit, is also the finish line.