On Saturday 10 April, Sean Burch (USA) led home an international field to win the Redmoon North Pole Marathon 2004.
In the early hours of Saturday morning the fifteen-person field assembled at Camp Borneo in near perfect North Pole weather conditions for the start of the northern-most marathon in the world. Near-perfect conditions at the pole are clear skies with light winds and a temperature of -25 degrees Celsius.
The soft underfoot conditions forced all the competitors to start with snowshoes as Brent Weigner (USA) forced the early pace on the 5km loop course. It was not until the 17km mark before Mt. Everest climber, Sean Burch, and legendary arctic explorer, Sir Ranulph Fiennes (GB), managed to overhaul the American leader.
By the 32km mark Burch had a ten-minute lead over Fiennes with Weigner, Timothy Mitchell Smith (GB), Steven Seaton (GB) and Noel Bresland (GB) battling it out for the remaining podium places.
Burch maintained his lead over the final ten kilometres and finished in a time of 3:43:17 hrs with Ranulph Fiennes taking second ahead of a late-charging Mitchell-Smith while Stevie Matthews was the first woman home in fourteenth place overall. “I’d no idea what to expect since this was my first marathon” said Burch “especially it being at the North Pole”.
The Irish entrants adopted a cautious strategy as many were competing in their first marathon. Diarmuid Smyth of Galway was the first of the Irish home followed closely by Paul Grealish and Fearghal Murphy as they wisely paced themselves evenly over the distance.
Mark Pollock became the first blind person to run a marathon at the pole when he finished an incredible joint tenth place in a time of 5:51:48 hrs. Ironically, he was running the race exactly six years since he lost his sight. Race director, Richard Donovan said of Pollock “You wouldn’t think he was blind by watching his graceful movement over the terrain – he was an inspiration to everyone here”.
Official Results
1 Sean Burch USA 3:43:17
2 Ranulph Fiennes GBR 3:56:49
3 Timothy Mitchell-Smith GBR 4:24:27
4 Brent Weigner USA 4:32:50
5 Steven Seaton GBR 4:39:31
6 Noel Bresland GBR 4:46:26
7 Diarmuid Smyth IRL 5:31:49
8 Paul Grealish IRL 5:47:02
8 Fearghal Murphy IRL 5:47:02
10 Mark Pollock IRL 5:51:48
10 John O’Regan IRL 5:51:48
12 Pearse Allen IRL 6:13:20
13 Maurice Boland IRL 7:09:09
14 Stevie Matthews GBR 7:55:32
15 John Lally IRL 20:21:32
