TAVISTOCK's world record holding marathon man Adam Holland can now proudly say he is just the fifth person in the world to cross the finishing line in the new London Olympic Stadium. Adam was one of 5,000 runners who took part in the Olympic Park Run last Saturday — a flagship event organised by the National Lottery and officially started by Princess Beatrice.

Some 40,000 people entered the ballot to take part in the five-mile race, which takes in some of the different sporting venues in the Olympic park that the lottery has helped to fund.

Adam finished the race in fifth place, in a time of 26 minutes 18 seconds.

He said: 'It's a personal best, which is good, but it was very windy on the course. They had showed the course on the National Lottery show but they had animated it — I know why now — nothing is finished!

'It was an odd course, because there were all difficult types of road surface and places we were running past, we could see them still building — the only bit that's actually finished is the stadium itself.

'It was fantastic to run in there and onto the track and to see all the people.'

Adam said there was a lot of waiting in the cold before the start of the race itself — and to thread his way to the front of the runners was a challenge in itself.

'The guy that won it was away straight off, but the three in front of me were within 15 seconds of each other, so it was pretty close.'

The winner, Tommy Davies, finished the run in a time of 25.11.

Adam paid tribute to his friend, Ash Eslick, who accompanied him to London for the big event. 'It was great to have a friend there before and after I finished the run,' he said.