Alex Yee and Ben Dijkstra were beaten by future footballer Jamal Lewis on The Mall in 2013 with Emile Cairess and Josh Kerr well down the field

Like many British marathon runners in London this weekend, Alex Yee's long-distance love affair with the race began as a teenager in the Mini event.

The Olympic triathlon champion didn’t have it all his own way back in 2013, though, with victory in the under-15 boys race at Mini London Marathon instead going to Jamal Lewis.

If a picture is worth a thousand words then Mark's Shearman's image at the top of this article certainly falls into that category.

Winner that day by three seconds in 15:04, Lewis went on to play football as a left back for Norwich City and Newcastle United in addition to earning 36 caps for Northern Ireland.

Runner-up behind Lewis – and also ahead of Yee – was Ben Dijkstra (pictured just to the left of Lewis's right shoulder). Like Yee, he moved into triathlon – and may have enjoyed similar success if it weren’t for injury – but as a teenager he enjoyed tremendous success on the cross country circuit, featuring on the cover of AW after winning one of his multiple English Schools titles.

Yee was of course no slouch as a teenage runner either, finishing seven seconds behind Dijkstra that day in London before going on to win Olympic triathlon gold in Paris 11 years later. There were quite a few interesting names well behind him in London, too.

They included Emile Cairess in ninth, Hugo Milner in 10th and Mahamed Mahamed in 21st. Cairess was top Brit in London last year, of course, before finishing fourth in the Olympic marathon in Paris. Milner has excelled on the cross-country circuit in recent winters in addition to making his mark in triathlon, whereas Mahamed was fourth in London last year and will be aiming for a similar performance this weekend.

Even further behind, a certain Josh Kerr placed a modest 47th. Yet just 10 years later he would outkick Jacob Ingebrigtsen to win the world 1500m title in Budapest.

Looking through old results from events like the Mini London Marathon is endlessly fascinating. The English Schools Championships, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, is another similar event where future stars are literally running, jumping and throwing in every corner of the stadium, but you don’t realise just how great they are until some years later.

Just one of many examples is Maro Itoje, who is making headlines right now as England rugby captain. As a teenage shot putter, though, he finished runner-up in the English Schools twice.

My favourite all-time example, however, is Bob Anderson, who won English Schools javelin gold in 1963 before picking up a ‘miniature spear’ to become world darts champion in 1988.

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