Eilish McColgan Wins Fourth Big Half on Return From Fractured Foot

Eilish McColgan marked her return from a five-month injury absence by winning the women's Big Half in London for the fourth time. BBC Sport reported that the 35-year-old Scot completed the 13.1-mile course in 1:10:54 on Sunday, finishing one minute and 19 seconds ahead of last year's champion, Jessica Warner-Judd.

The race was McColgan's first competitive appearance since she fractured a foot during the London Marathon in April. She still finished that marathon in seventh place despite blood showing through her shoe. The injury later forced her to withdraw from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July, where she had been due to defend her women's 10,000-metre title.

McColgan returned after spending several months training in warm weather and established a clear winning margin in the English capital. Her finishing time was more than three minutes slower than her best for the Big Half course. It was also outside the British half-marathon record of 1:05:43, which she holds.

The men's race produced a change at the top after Jack Rowe had won the previous three editions. Kadar Omar Abdullahi of Birchfield Harriers finished first in 1:01:51, beating Rowe by 14 seconds. Rowe's second-place finish denied him what would have been a record fourth consecutive victory in the event.

David Weir successfully defended the men's wheelchair title and delivered another record-setting performance. The 47-year-old won in 46:13, lowering the course record he set last year by 45 seconds. It was Weir's fifth victory in the race's nine-year history, achieved two years after he retired from Paralympic competition in 2024.

Eden Rainbow Cooper completed the wheelchair results by retaining the women's title in 52:47. Together with McColgan's successful comeback, the two defended wheelchair titles and Abdullahi's interruption of Rowe's winning sequence provided the central results from the latest edition of London's Big Half.