Chris Brasher

|- ! colspan="3" style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;background-color:#eeeeee;color:inherit;" | Men's Athletics

|- | style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;color:inherit;" | || style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | Melbourne 1956|| style="text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;" | 3000m Steeplechase |}

Christopher ("Chris") William Brasher (August 21, 1928 – February 28, 2003) was a British athlete and sports journalist who helped found the London Marathon.

Brasher was born in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana. In 1954, he acted as pacemaker for Roger Bannister when the latter ran the first sub-four-minute mile at the Iffley Road Stadium in Oxford. Two years later, at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, Brasher finished first in the 3,000 metres steeplechase with a time of 8 minutes 41.2 seconds, but was disqualified for allegedly interfering with another runner, Ernst Larsen of Norway. The following day, after an investigation, he was reinstated as gold medallist.

Brasher,a student of the Duke of York's Royal Military School and later a graduate of St John's College, Cambridge, went on to enjoy a distinguished career in journalism as sports editor for The Observer newspaper and in broadcasting, working as a reporter for the Tonight programme.

He was one of the pioneers of orienteering in Britain and can claim the first public mention of the sport in an article in The Observer in 1957: [1]

I have just taken part, for the first time, in one of the best sports in the world. It is hard to know what to call it. The Norwegians call it 'orientation'...

Brasher was awarded the CBE in 1996.

He died at his home in Chaddleworth, Berkshire, after an illness lasting several months.[2]

External links

• "Athletics world mourns the man behind the London marathon" - an article by John Ezard in The Guardian, dated March 1, 2003
• "Marathon founder Brasher dies" - a BBC Sport article, dated February 28, 2003
• "Great British Olympians:Chris Brasher" - an article by David Walsh in The Sunday Times from 2000.