Jim Peters Award


New “Select Lee Merrien” Facebook page gains 2,400 ‘likes’ in less than 24 hours

Boulder Wave released the following press release five minutes ago: Grassroots Support Growing for Lee Merrien to be Named to UK Olympic Men’s Marathon Team April 25, 2012 A fan of British marathon runner Lee Merrien has created an impromptu Facebook page called “Select Lee Merrien” to support the selection of Merrien to the British …

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The Case for Lee Merrien for Olympic Selection

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.

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