Controversy in London Marathon as wheelchair athlete collides with elite runners...

The London Marathon was held last Sunday, the 21st of April in glorious sunny conditions with a record crowd watching along the route.

In the men's race, Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede won in a time of 2:06:04, beating the 2011 champion Emmanuel Mutai into second place.

The womens race was however a lot more controversial. When the elite women approached a water station at about the 15 kms mark, the Olympic champion Tiki Gelana collided with one of the wheelchair athletes, Canadian Josh Cassidy. Even though Gelana managed to rejoin the race, the collision obviously had it's toll as she finally finished in 16th place in a time of 2:36:55. The 2012 Olympic silver medalist Priscah Jeptoo from Kenya who avoided the incident went on to win in a time of 2:20:15.

In a statement after the race, the organisers put up this statement which basically said that no-one was to blame. In a post race interview however, the wheelchair athlete said this in an interview..."It's something I have mentioned before. I don't know who's responsible but every year we come to overtake the women, there's 10 chairs going at 20mph and the poor women are scrambling to find their feet. I have a brand new $2,000 pair of wheels that are damaged, who's going to pay for them? Things have to change. The safest thing would be to have the chairs start first because one of these years a woman is going to have a leg broken, a career ruined. It's just not worth having this programme if the races are going to suffer.". Others have also called for an earlier separate start for the wheelchair athletes.

Entries for the 2014 London Marathon open on the 29th of April.

Coverage of the collision below...