Belgrave’s Tish Jones has been named in a highly competitive women’s elite field for the London marathon on April 26th this year.

Tish finished second Brit at last year’s marathon, and her time of 2:31:00 was good enough to qualify her for the World Championships in Doha. But she was cruelly denied the chance to represent her country by an injury picked up in the last few weeks before the race.

Her eyes will be on an even bigger prize this year as Olympic qualification is guaranteed for the first two British finishers - as long as they’ve also run inside 2:29:30.

Tish will face off against four of the ten fastest British marathoners of all time: Jess Piasecki, Charlotte Purdue, Steph Twell and Battersea regular Steph Davis of Clapham Chasers, who all have the qualifying time already in the bag.

But we’ve learned never to underestimate Tish, who is fiercely competitive, even with that famous grin on her face.

British female elite field

Jess Piasecki (PB 2:25:28)
Charlotte Purdue (2:25:38)
Stephanie Twell (2:26:40)
Stephanie Davis (2:27:40)
Lily Partridge (2:29:24)
Tracy Barlow (2:30:42)
Tish Jones (2:31:00)
Jenny Spink (2:31:14)
Hayley Carruthers (2:32:42)
Eleanor Davis (2:33:24)
Helen Davies (2:34:06)
Rebecca Murray (2:39:37)
Alice Wright (debut)

Belgravians at VLM 2020

Tish joins a strong field of Belles set to race the marathon this year, including Georgie Fenn, sisters Alice and Jess Reed, Natalie Nash, Justine Lynch and Sarah Kruger.

In the men’s race, Andrius Jaksevicius, Bradley Courtney-Pinn, Andrew Cumine, Steve Gardner and Alex Mills are all due on the start line in the Championship race.

Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Garret Lee - who ran 2:24 at London last year - is in his final few weeks of training before the US Olympic marathon trials in Atlanta.