Three of Team GB's Olympians are getting ready to tackle The Big Half on Sunday 1 September 2024. The 2022 Big Half champion, Eilish McColgan, will be joined on the journey from Paris to London by fellow Olympians Calli Hauger-Thackery – the Big Half defending champion – and Phil Sesemann.

This year The Big Half is the official trial race for the European Running Championships, which are being held for the first time in April 2025 in Brussels and Leuven, Belgium – previewed here in runABC. The first four British men and women to finish The Big Half will earn selection provided they have achieved the qualifying times of 62:30 for men and 71:30 for women.

Joining McColgan and Thackery in the elite women’s race is last year’s third-placed finisher, Abbie Donnelly. Leila Armoush, Beth Kidger, and Becky Briggs will also be expected to bid for a place in the European Championships team.

Among the elite men hoping to challenge Sesemann is the defending Big Half champion, Jack Rowe. Other notable entries in the elite men’s race include Paulos Surafel, the second fastest half marathon runner in the UK this year (61:21), Weynay Ghebresilasie, who ran 2:09:50 at last year’s BMW Berlin Marathon, and The Big Half 2021 champion Jake Smith.

More than 20,000 participants are registered to take part in The Big Half, London’s community half marathon, which also includes The Big Mile, a family-friendly one-mile event run on the final mile of The Big Half course, and the New Balance Big Relay, where teams of four complete 5K each of the half marathon route. 

The Big Half is a world-class mass participation event organised by London Marathon Events over the half marathon distance. The community event was first held in 2018, running through four London boroughs: Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark, and Tower Hamlets. 

The event is a celebration of the diversity of London and the communities of the four boroughs the route passes through. The race starts near Tower Bridge and finishes beside the historic Cutty Sark in Greenwich. For more information, please visit The Big Half website here. 

Previous results and news stories are at the runABC South race listing here.

Photo: Eilish McColgan courtesy of London Marathon Events Media