Lee Merrien and his wife at Sunday night's farewell party in London
In Sunday’s Virgin London Marathon, Lee Merrien (ASICS) took his marathon down another notch, improving from 2:14:27 to 2:13:41, thereby winning the Jim Peters Award (photo above) as the top British finisher for a second consecutive year. Despite now being well clear of the Olympic “A” standard of 2:15:00, Lee was left off the team by UK Athletics in their team announcement on Monday. There has been some commotion in the UK this week over the Federation’s selection standard of 2:12:00 for UK Men; as one knowledgable guest at the Tower Hotel in London pointed out earlier this week, the marathon and race walking events are the only ones for which UK Athletics decided to set qualification standards higher than those set by the IAAF.
The website Ethical Athletics posted strong support for Lee on their site yesterday in an article simply titled, “The Case for Lee Merrien.” Please read the comments and add your support for Lee’s cause.
