David Bedford

Who is David Bedford?

David Colin Bedford OBE is an English former long distance runner, whose athletic career spanned the early 1970s. Post retirement he served as race director of the London Marathon until 2012, and is the Chairman of the IAAF Road Running Commission, as well as sitting on the IAAF Cross Country Committee as the UK Athletics elected representative.

Bedford held the world record at 10,000m, improving it by 7.6 seconds with his time of 27 minutes 30.80 seconds in 1973. He also held the British records for 3,000m steeplechase and 5,000m. He usually ran in distinctive red socks, which later led to a well publicised dispute about the use of similarly attired runners in advertisements.