Press Release - London Marathon - 1/29/16

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

          MILLIONTH FINISHER IN 2016 VIRGIN MONEY LONDON MARATHON
 
        • #oneinamillion campaign celebrates every finisher since 1981
        • All finishers asked to share a selfie with their medal or
          other marathon memorabilia on social media
        • Unique #oneinamillion T-shirt will be available to all London
          finishers
 
On Sunday 24 April 2016, history will be made as a runner crosses the 
world-famous finish line in The Mall at the end of the Virgin Money London 
Marathon to become the millionth finisher in the history of the event.
 
To celebrate this great milestone, the organisers have created the 
#oneinamillion campaign to celebrate every runner who has successfully 
completed the 26.2-mile challenge since the first race back in 1981. 
 
Every runner who has ever finished the event is invited to share a selfie 
holding their medal or other memorabilia with @LondonMarathon using the 
hashtag #oneinamillion  (see @LondonMarathon for examples).
 
A database of finishers has been created which involved manually inputting 
20 years of historical results data. All #oneinamillion runners will be 
able to search the database by the year (or years) they ran to find their 
#oneinamillion finisher number(s).
 
Every finisher in the 35 previous races will be able to order a special 
#oneinamillion edition T-shirt printed with their unique #oneinamillion 
finisher number. The online ordering system for the #oneinamillion T-shirts 
will go live on www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com website on Friday 5 
February 2016.  
 
Dick Beardsley and Inge Simonsen, joint winners of the first London 
Marathon in 1981 will have the number #oneinamillion 1 and the men's winner 
on 24 April will be #oneinamillion 964334.
 
Runners in the 2016 Virgin Money London Marathon will be able to order 
their unique #oneinamillion edition T-shirt after this year's race. All 
profits from the special edition T-shirts will go to the London Marathon 
Charitable Trust to fund sports facilities in London and other areas.
 
"We want to celebrate every member of the London Marathon family," said 
Event Director Hugh Brasher (he's #oneinamillion 23967). "This is about 
every single runner who has ever run the event, from club runners to our 
champions and world record holders, from the charity runners who have 
raised so many millions for good causes to first-timers."
 
Highlights of the 2016 Virgin Money London Marathon include:
 
• Defending champion, Ethiopia's Tigist Tufa (she's #oneinamillion 926572) 
defends her title against a star-studded field that includes two-time 
London champion Mary Keitany from Kenya (she's #oneinamillion 784518) and 
world champion Mare Dibaba (ETH)
 
• Kenya's 2015 champion Eliud Kipchoge (he's #oneinamillion 926541) takes 
on countrymen Wilson Kipsang (he's #oneinamillion 819371), who won in 2012 
and 2014, world record holder Dennis Kimetto and New York champion Stanley 
Biwott with triple Olympic track gold medallist Kenenisa Bekele (ETH) and 
Eritrea's world champion Ghirmay Ghebreslassie also in the field
 
• British ESA astronaut Tim Peake (he's #oneinamillion 386675) runs in 
space 17 years after he ran as an earthling in 1999 
 
• Double Olympic champion Kelly Holmes makes her marathon debut twelve 
years after she won two gold medals in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens
 
• Hollywood A-lister Natalie Dormer (she's #oneinamillion 899834), star of 
The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, heads the team raising money for the 
NSPCC, the Charity of the Year
 
• Chris Evans (he's #oneinamillion 953859), who made his marathon debut in 
2015, runs as part of the BBC Radio 2's Children in Need team


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