David Bedford (athlete)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Bedford (born London December 30, 1949) was an English long distance runner, whose career spanned the early 1970s. He is currently the Race Director of the London Marathon, and a Representative for UK Athletics.
Bedford was a world record holder at 10,000m, improving the record by 7.6 seconds when running 27 minutes 30.80 seconds in 1973, and a British record holder for 3,000m steeplechase and 5,000m. A colourful character in athletics, he was usually seen running in distinctive red socks.
Whilst Bedford is recognised as one of the great distance runners of the 70s his major achievements were always against the clock rather than in the major Championships, where despite usually being regarded as one of the favourites going into the competitions his lack of a fast finish over the final lap invariably left him trailing the winner and disappointed at the tape.
In the 1971 European 10000m Final Bedford was only able to finish 6th to the Flying Finn Juha Vaatainen who won in a last lap "Burn up" with the East German Jurgen Haase with which many commentators regard as one of the greatest races of all time. Bedford had led for lap after lap but was unable to respond at the bell when the following pack swept past him.
He competed in the 1972 Munich Olympics, finishing 12th in the 5,000m and 6th in the 10,000m.
In Subsequent years his career was greatly hampered by injuries believed to have been caused by his prolific training mileage. This meant he was never able to run the great Marathon that many of his fans felt an injury free Bedford would have been capable of.
In 2003, Bedford was involved in a legal dispute over the portrayal of his image used by the directory enquiries company The Number for their 118 118 Service.
