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Winner Hugh Love (right) celebrates, and the race held in Wales last year
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A run of two minutes and 17 seconds won the Englishman Hugh Love 25 thousand pounds, with great respect and a shower of compliments. Loeb, 27 years old, recorded a first achievement of its kind in a traditional competition: he beat a horse in the annual race "man against horse".
500 runners and 47 horses with riders took part in the competition, which was held for the 25th time yesterday in the area of the small town of Tlanortyd Wells in central Wales, on farm roads, fields and footpaths. The competitors ran or galloped for 35 kilometers, in front of hundreds of spectators. At the beginning of the race, everyone moved in one group, but Liv said that after about 15 kilometers he was able to overtake his friends.
Two hours, five minutes and 19 seconds after the start, Loeb crossed the finish line, but it was not at all clear to him that he was the first to do so. "There was a sort of waiting phase, to check if someone finished the race faster than me," he said. "Then there was a countdown, and I was told that I had won. I was ecstatic, I couldn't believe it. Everyone cheered and shook my hand and told me that I would have to buy them a drink with the prize money." A little more than two minutes after Loeb, the horse KBJ and the rider Zoe White also crossed the finish line, recording a time of two hours, seven minutes and 36 seconds.
During the 25 years of the race, a thousand pounds were accumulated in the prize fund every year - with the amount reserved for the first person to win a horse. The organizers of the event saw Libya's victory, precisely at this time, as a particularly festive event. "It's a fantastic day," said organizer Gordon Green. "It was great because we are celebrating 25 years of the race. I always thought that someone would succeed, and today it happened," he added. The human victory almost happened already about four years ago, when runner Mark Crossdale missed the achievement by only 90 seconds.
Yesterday's race was the first in which Loeb, a management consultant for an information technology company from Bedford and an experienced marathon runner, participated. "I was the fourth Briton to finish the London Marathon this year, and I've been training for a long time," he boasts. "But this race is completely different. I went up and down the mountains today." At the end of the race he made it clear that this race would not be the last: "I will definitely do it again, it was a wonderful and very unusual event, not something I have ever done. I've never competed in a race like this before, but I seem to be doing well. I hope to come back next year and compete again."
For him, the victory was also compensation, for not meeting the conditions of admission to the Olympic Games in Athens. "It's amazing to win this money, but I won't believe it until I see it in my hand," he emphasized. He already has a plan: "The first thing I will do with the money is buy myself good training shoes. Then maybe I'll go on some training vacations, before participating in marathons in the fall."
Loeb was not the only one who promised a financial win following the race: the betting agency "William Hill" will now be forced to pay the bettors who placed their money on him, with odds of 16:1.
For the horse breed, this is a second "blow" to their reputation in racing: Simply Fabulous, a greyhound dog, defeated Tiny Tim, an outstanding six-year-old racing horse, about two weeks ago. The victory in the competition that took place in Kempton Park in Great Britain that gave the dog the title of "the fastest animal in the world of racing".
In the tradition of man versus animal competitions, the name of the sprinter Jesse Evans also stands out. After his achievements at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, he competed in a show competition of XNUMX meters against a thoroughbred horse - and won.
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