Emerging from the murky darkness illuminated by flaming torches lining the cobbled streets of Rome, a solitary African figure appeared. He moved with such grace and poise that people stopped and watched in awe at his motion. He glided barefoot across the cobbled stones where only decades before Mussolini had inspected his troops prior to Italy’s invasion of his country. His name was Abebe Bikila, a sheep herder from Ethiopia; his name would become synomonous with Ethiopia’s struggle in triumphing over colonial suppression. He would be responsible for paving the way for future generations of young African distance runners and was only moments away from being crowned Africa’s first Olympic marathon champion in the 1960 Games.

Running in Africa has become a way of life. Stories of Bikila’s marathon success were not just associated with his supreme athletic ability and the accolade of being an Olympic champion, but more importantly putting Africa firmly on the sporting map. Today there are hundreds of top runners all striving to get to the top of their sport, all literally “hungry” for success and looking for a platform to a perceived “better life”. It is not just the trappings of a western lifestyle that are an incentive to these fiercely proud runners. Bikila’s marathon triumph instilled a sense of pride, comradeship and duty to his fellow Ethiopians which was born from the struggles of everyday life in a country that has been plagued by war and famine. In Ethiopia if you are a runner you are fabled as a national hero, walk down the street and people will rejoice in your name.

From the 60’s to the 90’s Britain dominated the sport of marathon running. It was a time when the likes of Bill Adcocks, Ron Hill, Mike Gratton, Steve Jones and Richard Nerurkar were household names; famed for regularly running times faster then 2 hours and 10 minutes. It inspired a generation of runners to get off the couch, tie up their running shoes and culminated in over 100 British male marathon runners running under the 2 hour 20 minute mark during one season in 1985, with the majority achieving these times in the London Marathon. This year’s London marathon was indicative of the decline of competitive marathon running in this country, with only 2 British male marathon runners finishing under this time.

This decline of competitive marathon running in the UK could be considered to be symptomatic of the society we live in today. Connections between easy living, obesity and the government's lack of funding for sporting initiatives in schools have all led to this decline and the desire to excel in sport. The documentary will follow the stories of marathon runners from both the UK, Ethiopia and Kenya and explore what drives them to the extremes of human endurance. The documentary will explore the issues affecting marathon running including social, economic, cultural, psychological, physiological and genetic differences between UK and East African marathon runners.

To understand your subject fully as a filmmaker I believe that you have to totally immerse yourself in your project. As an averagely talented runner myself (January 2006 – 16 stone heavy drinker, asthmatic smoker recovering from a back operation, capable of running a 4.5km circuit in a little over 30 mins and having been advised not to partake in running activities due to a condition called lax ligaments) I want to see how far it will be possible to progress in a two year period culminating with the London Marathon in 2008 with the original ambitious target of qualifying for the Beijing Olympic Games. The reality is that I would have done extraordinarily well to break the 2 hours 30 minutes barrier and potentially a place in the UK top 30.

To use my own experiences of the hardships of training and marathon running it will give the audience a character that they can identify with, enabling viewers to gain a better understanding as to just how hard it is to progress to the top of the sport and to gather an insight as to how exceptional these elite runners really are. The journey and filming to date has created a healthy worldwide debate through forums, running magazines and the website www.theroadtobeijing.co.uk (a runner up in the Yahoo search engine finds of the year awards and responsible for generating interest of just under 600 hits a day) with regards to the subject of nature vs. nurture which will be explored further in the documentary.

I don’t envisage that everyone will be signing up for marathons, but with obesity an ever increasing problem in the UK it will make people challenge their own perceived barriers. With the Olympic Games and Paralympics coming to London in 2012 I hope that the documentary will also inspire future generations of talented young athletes to think “well if he can get that far then I can get one hell of a lot further”. In turn I hope this will raise standards and awareness of UK marathon running, the need for sport in schools, promote a healthy, active lifestyle and UK athletics in general.

I believe that by combining these relevant issues with the human interest stories, the documentary has the scope to appeal to a large viewing audience.

May 2007 - Please get in touch if you would like more information or to be involved at:-  alex@theroadtobeijing.co.uk