John Patrick Fletcher / GettyImagesContributor
Too Big Ben
The London Marathon
On Sunday 28 April 2019, 42 549 people ran the London Marathon, more than ever before.
Lukas Bates, a 30-year-old from Maidstone in Kent, attempted to smash the world record for the fastest marathon time dressed as a landmark.
But Lukas’s homemade costume of Big Ben (officially named the Elizabeth Tower) was a head too tall! Lukas had to be helped across the finishing line by a race volunteer.
When the film of his plight went viral, many people sought out his fundraising page and Lukas raised more than six times his target for the charities, Alzheimer’s Research UK and Dementia Revolution.
In total, runners of the 39th London marathon raised a record-breaking amount of more than a billion pounds for charity.
The elite runners made some landmarks of their own, too. This year Brigid Kosgei became the youngest ever women’s winner at age 25 and Eliud Kipchoge won the men’s race for the fourth time in a breathtaking course record of 2 hours 2 minutes and 37 seconds.
Kipchoge said, “The crowd in London is wonderful and that spirit pushed me. From the first kilometre to the last, everybody is shouting.”
Have you ever raised money for charity? How did you do it?
Would you ever run a marathon?
What does the word ‘landmark’ mean?
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24 May 2019 at 14:40
What Lukas has done in absolutelly awsome. I'm sure nobody will ever forget it! I've never run a marathon like that, but I've competed in a few shorter running competition when I was at middle school. I remember during a couple of them my school raised some money for an charity found which works to stop undernourishment in Africa. Some volunteers talked to us about their aim and how their organisation worked before we run and we all got motivated to do our best. At the end of the day we raised about 1000 euros and for a so little school it's a great succes. They still do that competition every year and every time it becomes bigger. I'm happy to have helped for a so important cause and I hope I will able to help in someway again in the future. There are so many organisations that every day try to make our world better, not everything is irreparable, if we can do something to help them, we have to.