KEVIN MCLERNON was the heaviest man ever to go on ITV’s hit reality weight loss programme, The Biggest Loser.

Wilson Kipsang snatched victory from fellow Kenyan Micah Kogo in the UK's Great North Run thanks to a dramatic sprint finish that went right to the line.

A grandfather ran the Great North Run with a fridge strapped to his back.

Sunderland 4 Stoke 0

Two-time champion Martin Lel has been forced to pull out of this weekend’s Great North Run due to injury.

MARTIN FAGAN will go to the line among the favourites for tomorrow’s senior men’s race at the European cross-country championships in Brussels but the Mullingar Harrier knows it will be difficult to improve on last year’s seventh placing in Toro.

IRELAND’S Martin Fagan and multiple world champion Lornah Kiplagat were named European Athletes of the Month for October on the back of their scintillating form on the road circuit.

PAULA RADCLIFFE will turn her attention to the Beijing Olympics women’s marathon following her comeback victory in New York last night.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN is not ruling out a crack at the marathon at next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn believes the club’s “colossal” derby clash with Newcastle could become the north-east’s biggest sporting event.

Haile Gebrselassie is hoping to honour a long-term commitment by making his first appearance in the BUPA Great North Run on September 30.

SEAMUS POWER bids to win the National senior inter-counties cross-country title for a sensational 10th time at St Augustine’s College, Dungarvan, on Sunday.

Jo Pavey was delighted with her victory in the BUPA Great South Run but later claimed she was just as pleased her performance did not see her finish receiving medical treatment.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN lived up to her promise of wearing a Sunderland shirt in the heartland of their bitter rivals Newcastle on Sunday.

Dejene Berhanu is a late replacement for world marathon record holder Paul Tergat in Sunday’s BUPA Great North Run in the UK.

Sonia O’Sullivan will assess her track form before deciding whether to compete in Gothenburg at this summer’s European Championships.

A FRUSTRATED Mark Carroll walked away from the New York City Marathon last night admitting: “I’m having a biomechanical breakdown.”

Model Nell McAndrew spoke of her heartbreak after she was forced to terminate her pregnancy because the baby would not survive.

TWO-TIME Irish Olympian Sinead Delahunty-Evans will attempt to relive past glories when she goes to the line in the renewed Fifth Avenue Mile in New York tomorrow.

FOUR runners died yesterday as the warm weather took its toll on competitors in Britain’s 25th Great North Run.

SEAMUS POWER already has a challenge in his bid to stretch his national inter-counties cross-country championship record to 10 straight wins.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN returns to the big stage tomorrow when she lines up for the 13th IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in New Delhi.

Ireland’s Sonia O'Sullivan ran well in Gateshead this morning and finished sixth in the prestigious Great North Run in England.

Eighteen-year-old Colin Costello continued his impressive development this afternoon in Newcastle, winning the BUPA Great North Mile junior men's race.

High winds blowing relentlessly off the Solent ruined any hopes Sonia O’Sullivan had of breaking the world 10-mile record again at the BUPA Great South Run.

Sonia O’Sullivan has finished fourth in the UK’s Great North Run, in Newcastle.

FORGET Paris and last Sunday’s race in Richmond, Sonia O’Sullivan is ready to go head to head with Paula Radcliffe and the double Olympic champion, Derartu Tulu, in Hyde Park next Sunday.

NOEL BERKELEY (Dundrum South Dublin) may be going for his seventh win in Ireland’s premier road race, the Nike Ballycotton 10, on Sunday, but his enthusiasm hasn’t waned.

Athletics Ireland have named the strongest possible teams for next month's Great North Run in Durham.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN’S bite at the Big Apple ended in disappointment yesterday when she struggled home in 12th place in the New York City Marathon in a time of 2:32:06.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN is wise not to set any targets in advance of the New York Marathon, according to Olympic medallist, John Treacy.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN will be the star attraction in Loughrea tomorrow when the Great Ireland Run - a five mile road race - will be sponsored by Bord Fáilte’s International Sports Tourism Initiative and will attract 1,000 runners, joggers and fun runners from Ireland and overseas.

SONIA O’SULLIVAN will be back in action in Loughrea on Sunday when the spotlight will be on the Great Ireland Run - an event which she won in 1998 when she was a double world cross-country and European track champion.

Sonia O'Sullivan has won the Great North Run for the second time.

Tyneside

Sonia O’Sullivan starts her quest for a second BUPA Great North Run victory tomorrow insisting: “I’ve never felt fitter.”

Sonia O’Sullivan has dismissed suggestions that she is giving up track competition, insisting next year and in 2004 she will be challenging for more honours at the world championships and then the Olympic Games in Athens.

Sonia O’Sullivan’s superb world 10 miles record in this morning’s BUPA Great South Run may have proved another decisive step towards the gifted Olympic 5,000 metres silver medallist running in November’s New York Marathon.

AFTER her fine run in Hyde Park last weekend — missing the world record for 5k on the road by a mere two seconds — Sonia O’Sullivan is set for a quick follow-up in the BUPA Great South Run in Portsmouth on Sunday.

A pregnant Sonia O'Sullivan won the Tesco Women's Great North Run in Manchester on Sunday morning.

Sonia O’Sullivan will compete in next month’s Great North Run in Manchester even though she is expecting a second child.

Sonia O'Sullivan's participation in the world track and field championships in Edmonton in Canada this summer could be in doubt.