Charlie Spedding

Charlie Spedding (actually Charles Spedding ; born May 19, 1952 in Bishop Auckland , County Durham ) is a retired English long-distance runner and Olympic Knight.

In 1983 he became the English champion in the 10,000 meter run in his best time of 28: 08.12 minutes.

In early 1984 he ran the Houston Marathon for the first time in competition, the 42.195 km, to see whether he should compete over that distance or the 10,000 m in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles . He won this race by a hair's breadth ahead of Massimo Magnani , who was ranked at the same time .

He should not regret the decision to switch to the long Olympic distance, because a few months later he won the London Marathon and in the Olympic marathon at 35 km he stood out from the rest of the field with eventual winners Carlos Lopes and John Treacy . While Lopez was able to break away from them a few kilometers later, the race for the silver medal remained exciting until the end - with a lead of just two seconds, Treacy Spedding relegated third place.

A year later, he finished second behind Steve Jones in the London Marathon , setting an English record of 2:08:33 h, which is still in place today (March 2008). He finished third in the Chicago Marathon in 1986 and sixth in the 1988 Seoul Olympics marathon .

Because he was repeatedly troubled by injury problems, he ended his sporting career in 1990.

In the following years he worked as a pharmacist.

Already during his sporting career he was committed to the Campaign for Real Ale and justified this by saying that if he couldn't drink a lot of beer, it should at least be the best possible.

Web links

• Athlete portrait on sporting-heroes.net
• Charlie Spedding in the database of Olympedia.org (English)
• Charlie Still the Marathon Man , Northern Echo article , July 3, 2001
• Face to Face: Charlie Spedding , article by John Gibson in the Evening Chronicle, June 24, 2003