This is a special blog from our Deputy Chief Observer
Why Do We Need Security Bikes?
In the course of the 2004 Athens Olympic Marathon, on-course security consisted of a rotund local policeman riding a push bike at the head of the race. A former Catholic Priest, Father Cornelius Horan, thought that it would be a good idea to bring attention to his cause, whatever that was, to rush out of the crowd and grab the lead runner, Vanderlei de Lima from Brazil, and push him into the crowd on the opposite side of the course. Mr. Horan was subsequently detained and Mr. de Lima went on to win the Bronze medal.
After some head scratching it was decided that motorcycles close to the elite runners in “fun” marathons, might be able to react more quickly to any such protests.
It eventually came to pass that BMW Motorrad would supply the bikes for various tasks connected with the marathon, including the TV camera bikes, which in recent years, have been electric scooters. The security bikes would all be ridden by retired members of the Metropolitan Police Special Escort Group. The “security pillions” are all members of the same judo club and have the appropriate skills to restrain a protester until the arrival of police.
2022 London Marathon
Sunday 3 October began for me at 4am when, together with other colleagues, we left our hotel in east London, near Excel, to go to an hotel near Windsor, to accompany the coaches carrying the elite wheelchair, female and male athletes, and make sure that they all got to the start on Blackheath on time. Even on a Sunday morning this took an hour and ten minutes.
I then went into relax mode until the start of the elite men’s race at 0930.
Out in front of the start line, my Ninja, Rocco (name changed) amused the crowd by going through his normal warm up routine, as though he were actually going to run! Rocco takes his job very seriously. Together with another security bike, our task was to be close to the elite male runners and then the leader, continuously scanning the crowd for anyone climbing barriers or coming onto the course, near the runners. We always have a practice session of stopping quickly, with the bike stable, to allow the Ninja to leap off to tackle the idiot. Fortunately nothing like that happened on this Marathon although in 2019 one of the guys did have to restrain an idiot that ran onto the course in the direction of the lead runner. Pictures of that one are out there.
We completed the course, just behind Sisay Lemma, in 2 hours and 4 minutes, although it must be said that we weren’t quite as knackered as he was!
After a bit of lunch, I went onto my third task of the day; Virgin London Marathon standby welfare driver. As you will have seen in the past, people have suffered serious medical problems in the course of this event. Where they are removed to the nearest hospital on the course, VLM have a car and driver on standby near the finish line, in order to convey the relatives of any such casualty, to the hospital.
I am pleased to say that although there were some medical emergencies this year; none were severe enough to deploy me.
I got back to my hotel at 7pm and after dinner and a few glasses of lemonade, I was very pleased to get to bed.
Bob Stewart