GILES ELLIOTT

Giles has shown incredible motivational skills in persuading each of the team members to take on the Challenge and is therefore most to blame for the creation of this modern day, rag tag collection of misfits.

Given his penchant for incessant verbal diarrhoea, the rest of the team is very much hoping that his big talk of "a great challenge, with great friends, for a great cause", will not last much beyond the suburbs of Paris.

His own motivation comes from a horrifying moment at the 2004 New York Marathon. When a battered and bruised John P, his face covered in Vaseline, tapped him on the shoulder at mile 18, Giles realised that he had to get fit and address his notorious mental frailities. As he said later, "it was like seeing an image of myself in 20 years, albeit with less hair, more weight and only one functioning leg... scary".

Personal Best: 3:38 (Chicago, 2005)