Cairess hopes he made stricken cousin proud
EMILE Cairess has dedicated his stunning performance at the London Marathon to his cousin, who was left in a coma after a car crash earlier this year.
Cairess was third in the second fastest time ever by a British man in two hours, six minutes, 46 seconds.
The run should rubber-stamp his place in the Great Britain team for this summer’s Olympics.
However, Cairess’ immediate thoughts were with his 22-year-old cousin, Oliver Burton, who is still in hospital but out of intensive care.
“He’s my little cousin, like a little brother to me, and a couple of months ago he was in a bad accident,” said Cairess, 26. “He was in a coma for about a month and just came out of ICU a few days ago,
“It was so stressful, it was touch and go at some points but he’s made a fantastic recovery in the last couple of weeks.
“This morning (Sunday) I was really emotional. Hopefully I’ve made him proud.”
Cairess did not even know he was third, behind winner Alexander Munyao of Kenya and 41-year-old
Kenenisa Bekele, until about 200 metres from the finish line.
“I heard it over the tannoy,” he added. “I passed about four people in the space of a minute around the 39km mark and I thought I’d already passed a few from the front group.
“I was like ‘There can’t be many more left so I must be in a decent position’ but I didn’t know, I could have been sixth or seventh. When I heard I was third it was great.”
Another Briton, Mahamed Mahamed, finished fourth, making it the first time two home runners have finished in the top four since Kevin Forster and Hugh Jones in 1988.
Mahamed was catching Cairess in the closing stages and although he could not quite overhaul his teammate, he was still inside the Olympic qualifying time.
“Me and Mahamed have been racing since we were 13, so we’ve always been neck and neck,” said Cairess. “We’ve always progressed together, so it’s fantastic to see him doing so well. A lot of people drop out of the sport but we kept going and it’s paid off for us.”
Winner Munyao managed to shake off veteran Ethopian Bekele, who was bidding for a first London Marathon win some 20 years after he took Olympic 10,000m gold, with around three miles to go.