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THE PARISH WALK TOP 10 NUMBER 8 JOHN CANNELL
John Cannell has won the Parish Walk six times. That is more than any other competitor so how on earth has he ended up "only" ranked number 8? JC first completed the course in 1967 in 17:42:36 and his second circuit of 17:28:12 in 1976 secured his first victory. In between times he was regular off Island competitor, a Commonwealth Games athlete in 1970 and qualified as a centurion. He retired at Rushen and Andreas the following years before finishing second to Derek Harrison in 16:22:03 in his record breaking 1979 walk. After another disappointment in 1980 (retiring at Jurby) he claimed a hatrick between 1981 and 1983 (dipping under 16 hours in 1982). Towards the end of 1983 he sought a new direction and decided to forgo the Parish Walk for the next few years (although he walked to Jurby in 1985 and German every other year between 1986 and 1990) in an attempt to win the 100 mile walk. The next five years were to be the most successful in John's career smashing every personal best including 4.36 in the famous Bradford (hilly) 50km and culminating with 17:10:15 in the 100 miles at Leicester in 1988 - that is nearly 6 miles per hour! He returned to win the Parish Walk again in 1993 and 1994. Here are details of JC's 8 finishes:
So to return to my own question. Why only 8th? Because 5 men walked at least 15 minutes faster and there are two remarkable female performances. I have, however, because of the number of wins, ranked him higher than Albert Johnson who walked almost 5 minutes faster than John's time in his only finish. I'm sure John's scrapbooks, including details of his off island successes, will compensate for not leaving his best years on the Parish Walk course. As with Derek Harrison and Graham Young, we can only speculate on what he might have achieved if his best years were at the Parish. |
My top 10 Parish Walkers |
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Rankings are the personal opinion of Murray Lambden only |
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