Posted: September 16, 2004

Athletics: Holmes Ends Season In BUPA Great North Mile

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

Double Olympic gold medallist Kelly Holmes admits she is delighted her final appearance of a fairytale summer season will be in the BUPA Great North Mile on September 25.

"Running my last race on home soil before going off on holiday will be absolutely brilliant," said Holmes, who incredibly won both the Olympic 800 and 1,500 metres titles in Athens last month.

The Tyneside venue and the course which follows the renovated Newcastle and Gateshead Quaysides, is almost a second home to the first Briton to bag two middle distance medals since Albert Hill achieved the feat 84 years ago.

Holmes won the first two races which traditionally kickstart the BUPA Great North Weekend before the World's biggest half marathon with 49,000 entries get underway the next day.

But last year despite bravely fighting to remain Great North Mile champion, she surrendered her title to Sureyya Ayhan, easily the World's 2003 oustanding performer and Turkey's reigning European 1,500m champion.

That and Holmes's personal appetite for road miles - earlier this year she kickstarted her momentous season with a second successive win around HM The Queen's Estate in Balmoral - saw her instantly confirm a long standing invitation to return to the north east.

Holmes, will face strong overseas opposition as well as the rivalry of fellow Brits Hayley Tullett, Jo Pavey and Jo Fenn, is looking forward to what will be another big day of celebrations.

As a frequent visitor to Tyneside in an international career covering almost a dozen years, she was a household name amongst its athletics fraternity even before her Athens success.

Holmes admitted: "I like running in mile road races and I'm really looking forward to coming back to Newcastle for my first race in this country since the Olympics.

"The support I have had in previous years has been fantastic and I'm sure the turnout will again be massive for what is a great event."

Indeed last September a crowd of over 10,000 spectators crammed the both sides of the River Tyne for both the men and women's races which preceded the BUPA Junior Great North Run.

Holmes who post-Athens has competed in Berlin and travels to Monaco's World Athletics final this weekend insisted she is aiming for a third victory in the BBC televised race despite the massive celebrity appearances she has undertaken.

"I will be in shape for Newcastle," said Holmes, adamant her two track races have once again sharpened her reflexes and determined to sign-off her season with another victory.

Michael East will defend the title he won a year ago in a race also featuring the two previous winners Vyacheslav Shabunin of Russia and Portugal's Rui Silva.

East sixth in the Olympic 1,500m final has progressed brilliantly this summer, and in Greece was the only British male athlete to make a track final.

The Portsmouth-based star realises retaining his Great North Mile title is going to be just as difficult as was performing with such distinction in Athens.

Silva - a former World Indoors 1,500m champion - himself ran brilliantly at the Olympics, finishing faster than anyone else when 10th at the start of the final circuit before speedily moving through the field to clinch third spot behind Hicham El Guerrouj and Bernard Lagat.

Ukraine's Ivan Heshko who was fifth in the race is also in the field while last year's World 10,000m. Eliud Kipchoge - the Kenyan has ran 3min 33.20sec for 1,500m this summer - steps down to the mile distance.