Great North Run 2025: Sir Brendan Foster on 'best moment' in race's history

Sir Brendan Foster has revealed his favourite Great North Run memory, 44 years after the first ever race. The Great North Run founder spoke as 80,000 fun runners and elite athletes were arriving on Tyneside ahead of the biggest half marathon in the world.

There are 60,000 entries to Sunday's run, with another 20,000 children, their parents, athletes and fun runners set to take part in the GNR festival over the weekend. Sir Brendan's all-time favourite run dates back to 2013, and what was described as the "greatest road race in history".

It provided a battle royal between Mo Farah, Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele. Farah suffered a rare defeat to Bekele but Sir Brendan, 77, told the Mirror : "I remember Mo, Kenenisa and Haile running past Gateshead Stadium where they had all competed in the past.

"That has been described as the greatest road race in history, which is quite something. So that would be my best moment if I had to choose one."

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Sir Brendan is excited at the prospect of seeing Dame Kelly Holmes this year, with the icon admitting she is 'nervous'. And he paid tribute to the people of the North east and believes they are the secret of its success, with 200,000 expected to line the route again.

"It has been the biggest mass participation event in the UK right from day one," he said.

"The London marathon was in April 1981, we had 12,000 in June of that year. We were also the first to hit 1m taking part ahead of New York, London, Boston.

"I've waited 21 years for Britain's greatest ever female Olympian Kelly Holmes to come and she is here on Sunday.

"Our greatest track and field male athlete Mo Farah came to run his last ever race here, that was an honour for us, that sums it up.

"It is the people of the region who have made it what it is, it is their event, the public make it exciting, fun. Kelly came two days after her double win in the Olympics in 2004, to race on the Quayside.

"We needed extra security for her, and she is really nervous about racing this weekend. But it will be great to see her."

Newcastle Utd stars Nick Pope and Jacob Murphy are starting the race, and Sir Brendan joked: "We’ve had a Prime Minister, England football managers, Rock stars, Olympic Champions, TV Celebrities and a whole host more.

"But in 44 years of the run we’ve never had players representing a North East football club who have won a major trophy.”

Race starters have included Sting, Ant and Dec, Sir Bobby Robson, Alan Shearer, Eddie Howe, and Jill Scott, as well as fellow Olympic Champions, Sir Chris Hoy and Dame Kelly Holmes.

In the women’s event, Eilish McColgan will come head to head with Kenyan Sheila Chepkirui, who finished third to McColgan in the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, and was victorious at the 2024 New York City Marathon.

They will be joined in the start line by Great North Run Women’s Champion from 2016 and 2018 Vivian Cheruiyot (Kenya).

After her blistering run at the 2024 event which saw her compete in a six-way fight for the finish, only winning will count for McColgan in 2025 to join her mum Liz on the winners' roll of honour.

Eilish's father, Peter McColgan ran the Great North Run in 1995 with a time of 66:36, which remains the fastest time by a McColgan at the event.

Speaking at the launch today, she joked: "This event is something which I have always wanted to do since watching my mum as a little girl.

"You are lining up with 60,000 other people, I often think where else could you do that?

"You can't do it at Wimbledon, you can't see that in football, it is something unique to our sport where you are on the starting line with elite athletes.

"I was here 30 years ago with my mum and she won it three times, which gives me great pride. And yet my dad has the family record, he did it in 66 minutes, maybe one day I can beat that."

Speaking at a launch event in Fenwick dept store in Newcastle, fundraisers told their moving stories of why they take part in the event. Robbie Stewart, 28, a dental therapist originally from Newcastle but now living in London, is running in memory of his mum Dawn Milling, 56.

She died in January, spending the last days of her life in St Oswalds Hospice. Robbie is raising money for St Oswalds and said: "This is my second Great North Run and mum was at the end for the first one.

"She won't be there this time, but I can never give back enough to St Oswalds for what they did for mum and my family."

Millie Fullerton, 27, of Ellesmere Port., is running with Laura Booth, 28, of Sheffield, and Maria Camacho-Encina, 35, of Seville, part of the British Heart Foundation research team based at Newcastle's Centre for Life.

Millie specialises in the causes of cardiomyopathy, which enlarges the heart. She said: " We are investigating treatments for heart disease, which is the biggest killer in the world, there are so many people in the UK who are affected.

"It is really important to fund these projects at the moment, including our project in Newcastle. There is £100m from the British Heart Foundation going into research in the UK, the work that they do is absolutely incredible."