Former winners to join Mo Farah in racing the 10km in the UK capital

Andy Butchart and Steph Twell are to form part of two strong domestic fields when they return to the Vitality London 10,000 on Monday May 27.

The former winners will join the previously-announced defending champion Mo Farah in racing over 10km in the UK capital, with Butchart back in action after his two wins in 2016 and 2017.

The men’s field includes six athletes who have run sub-29 minutes, including Nick Goolab – the fastest man over the distance in the UK this year (28:22) – plus Luke Traynor, Andy Vernon and Jonny Mellor.

Also on the elite start list are Sam Stabler, Charlie Hulson, Kieran Clements, Josh Griffiths, Matt Sharp, Daniel Studley, Richard Allen, Derek Rae, Ben Connor and Derek Hawkins.

The women’s race also has a loaded domestic field that includes three former winners in defending champion Twell, 2016 victor Lily Partridge and Gemma Steel, who won in 2014.

Charlotte Arter, the reigning British 10,000m champion on the track, and Tish Jones, who was the second British woman home at the Virgin Money London Marathon to qualify for the World Championships, are also racing, as are three of the six-strong team that Great Britain sent to the World Cross Country Championships in March: Kate Avery, Jennifer Nesbitt and Jess Piasecki.

They will be joined by Hayley Carruthers, Louise Small, Tracy Barlow, Helen Davies and Verity Ockenden.

The Vitality London 10,000 takes place on bank holiday Monday, the day after the Vitality Westminster Mile where Laura Muir will be starting a summer season which she hopes will end in glory at the World Championships in Doha.

Multiple European champion Muir leads the entrants in a star-studded elite women’s field as she will be joined by defending champion Melissa Courtney, the Commonwealth Games 1500m bronze medallist, plus 2017 champion Adelle Tracey.

European indoor 800m gold medallist Shelayna Oskan-Clarke will make her debut in the event while Sarah McDonald, who won the Vitality Westminster Mile in 2016 and was runner-up a year later, returns to the streets of central London.

In the men’s race, defending champion Chris O’Hare is hoping to become the first man in the history of the Vitality Westminster Mile to break the four-minute barrier.

O’Hare, who won a bronze medal over 3000m at the European Indoor Championships in March, is aiming to break the mark and win the Bannister Trophy just weeks after the 65th anniversary of Roger Bannister’s first sub-four-minute mile.

O’Hare will face competition from rising star Jake Heyward, who was fourth in the 1500m at last year’s World U20 Championships, and three-time British 800m champion Elliot Giles. Jamie Webb, who won a bronze medal in the 800m at this year’s European Indoor Championships, and the current course record-holder Goolab, who ran 4:01 to win in 2016, will also be on the start line on a busy weekend for Goolab.

The Vitality Westminster Mile is the world’s biggest timed mile event with races for all ages and abilities, from families to adults, schools, wheelchairs, masters and Olympians. The under-13, under-15, under-17, under-20 and senior races are also the British One Mile Road Championships.

A record number of more than 17,000 participants are expected to run the Vitality London 10,000 on a course which passes iconic London landmarks such as Admiralty Arch, Nelson’s Column, St Paul’s Cathedral, Mansion House, the Bank of England, the Old Bailey, Somerset House, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

The Vitality London 10,000 also incorporates the British Athletics 10km Championships for men and women.