London Landmarks Half Marathon raises over £8.8mn
Melanie May | 3 April 2023 | News
This year’s London Landmarks Half Marathon has raised almost £3 million more than the 2022 event, with a total of over £8.8mn for Tommy’s and its other charity partners.
This is the largest sum of money the event has raised to date (2022 saw almost 12,000 runners raise £6mn).
The London Landmarks Half Marathon took place yesterday, 2 April. 17,211 participants ran the 13.1 mile route through the City of London and Westminster, which took them past some of London’s most famous landmarks, including Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral, Nelson’s Column, and the Tower of London.
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The annual event is organised by Tommy’s to raise funds to support its work, as well as for over 450 charity partners. Famous faces among the runners included Dermot O’Leary, Mark Wright and Jenni Falconer, who ran in support of Coppafeel, JE3 Foundation and Tommy’s respectively.
In an event first, David Smale and Ben Leaman broke through the tape together as joint winners. Other celebrations included breaking a Guinness World Record for the ‘fastest half marathon dressed as a star’ claimed by Keith Williams. Running his 5th London Landmarks Half on behalf of Tommy’s, Keith smashed the record completing the course in 1hr 32 minutes.
The LLHM Charity Mascot Dash also returned, with eight characters competing in a 100M ‘sprint’ down Whitehall past Horse Guards Parade ahead of the first runners reaching the finish line. This race was won by Hero, the canine mascot from Guide Dogs.
For the first year, LLHM officially welcomed wheelchairs to the event, with wheelchair participants and their support runners leading the masses as they crossed the start line.
Event Director Lia Fyles said:
“Today has been our biggest ever London Landmarks Half. To be able to welcome those in wheelchairs to participate for the first year is progression for us, we want everyone no matter what their background or ability to be able to experience the magic of being involved in our special event. Every year we aim to entertain and give back to the runners as they run the course – they all have their own powerful personal reasons for taking part today so we try to ensure it’s a day to remember. Congratulations to everyone and thank you for helping Tommy’s, and our charity partners, raise so much money which will help many people in the future.”
LLHM 2024 will take place on Sunday 7 April 2024.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.