Just Announced: AJ Bell Great North Run 2024 Elite Field
Over 120 invited elite athletes will take part in the annual AJ Bell Great North Run on Sunday, 8 September 2024.
The line-up has been unveiled for this year’s elite field races, following on from an action-packed Paris Olympics this summer. There are several highlights to this year’s elite field, including British hopeful and 2021 Great North Run Champion, Marc Scott competing against Paris Olympics Silver medallist, Berihu Aregawi, of Ethiopia, and 2024 Boston Marathon Men’s Champion and 2021 London Marathon Winner, Sisay Lemma. In the Women’s race four-time Olympian and Commonwealth Games Champion, Eilish McColgan will take on Great North Run Women’s Champion from 2016 and 2018, Vivian Cheruiyot.
Eilish McColgan, Great Run series ambassador, said: “I am so excited to be taking part in the 2024 AJ Bell Great North Run on 8 September. I have incredible memories of competing in Newcastle and participating in the Junior Great North Run events over twenty years ago. We have a family history at the Great North Run, with Mum being a three-time winner, so this year’s event will be a special one for me to finally follow in my Mum’s footsteps, running the original route from Newcastle to South Shields.”
“Returning from this year’s Paris Olympics and on the road back from injury, I’m especially looking forward to the tens of thousands of spectators and supporters lining the streets, as well as the 60,000 runners taking part alongside me.”
This year’s event will once again feature elite men’s and women’s wheelchair races, held to the backdrop of this year’s Paralympic Games closing ceremony in Paris. Leading the field in the Men’s race are JohnBoy Smith, Sean Frame and Michael McCabe, headlining the Women’s field is 2021 Great North Run Champion, Jade Hall.
A roster of British athletes will compete alongside some of the world’s best distance runners from the USA, Ethiopia, Kenya, Japan and Europe. The full list is available at the end of the release.
Sir Brendan Foster, Founder of the Great North Run and President of The Great Run Company, said: “Our fantastic spectators are once again in for a great show of top athletics action at the front of this year’s Great North Run.”
“It’s an honour for the North East to welcome world class athletes from across the globe, in a year where the Great North Run has been awarded the prestigious World Athletics Heritage Plaque, a recognition for its contribution to road running. It’s also an award for the people who help make the Great North Run so special and reflects how much the event means to so many people.”
The featured names from this year’s lineup include:
Men
- Marc Scott – Great North Run winner 2021
- Evans Chebet – Boston Marathon winner 2023
- Berihu Aregawi – Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi 2004 Olympic Silver medallist over 10000m
- Sisay Lemma – 2024 Boston Marathon Champion
- Abel Kipchumba – 2024 NYC Half Marathon Champion field and 2021 Valencia Half Marathon.
Women
- Eilish McColgan – Commonwealth Games Champion and British record holder over 10K
- Vivian Cheruiyot – 6 X World Champion, 3 x Olympic medallist and 2 X GNR Champion
- Sheila Chepkirui – 2nd to Eilish Commonwealth Games also 2nd Berlin Marathon 2023
- Senbere Teferi – 3 x World Championship silver medallist. World record holder for the women’s only 5 kilometres road race.
Elite athletes will line up alongside 60,000 runners at the 43rd Great North Run on Sunday 8 September for the world’s biggest half marathon. The iconic course starts in Newcastle city centre and finishes 13.1 miles later in the coastal town of South Shields. Many runners will be taking part to support worthy causes, raising an estimated £25 million pounds for charity. Find out more here.
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