Great North Run 2015: Brendan Foster on doping in athletics, Mo Farah and the world's favourite run; Brendan Foster talks about celebrating Usain Bolt's win and how the Great North Run is officially the biggest run in the world once more.

Byline: Mark Douglas

So how do you top the fireworks of being the first mass participation run in the world to achieve one million finishers?

If you're the organisers of the Great North Run, you go and break another milestone. For while this year's edition of the Newcastle to South Shields run might not have the fire and furore of 2014's Quayside spectacular to mark the millionth person to cross the line it is -- at least -- officially the world's largest run once more.

Brendan Foster, fresh from commentating on arguably the best ever World Athletics Championships in Beijing, is the one to break the bad news to Gothenburg's May half-marathon.

"The build-up is slightly different because there's not one focal point but I think we're in pretty good shape," he says at company HQ in the heart of Newcastle.

"With the Great North Run and the junior runs this year we've got a record number of entries this year -- nearly 64,500. That means the Great North Run is the biggest in the world again, because there's one in Gothenberg which is 64,000.

"Over all the years we've had 3 million people running in all of our events all over the country, so we're the world's biggest running programme. We've taken that a little bit further -- we're working with Saatchi and Saatchi and our strapline will be the 'world's favourite run'.

"We've got big plans for next year as well, to do a big celebration. This year we've got runners from 42 countries in the world -- every postcode in the country and the greatest distance runner will be at the front of the field (Mo Farah). So I think we're doing OK."

The uplift of the Great North Run couldn't have come at a better time for the sport of athletics, which is continuing to make headlines for the wrong reasons.

Just this week, Paula Radcliffe had to issue a furious denial after being linked to claims of doping. Foster, an Olympic and World medallist who has his own experience of being cheated by doped athletes, is fascinating on the subject.

"I think it was a brilliant World Athletics championships. Maybe the best ever," he says.

"One of the reasons why there's all this controversy is because athletics, in less than a wholly successful manner so far admittedly, is trying to police itself against the dopers. You couldn't say that of every sport, to be fair. There are 36 rugby players banned for drugs in Britain -- there's only two athletes.

"Athletics is leading the way in the chase against drugs and in doing so, it's...

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