Olympic torch hopefuls from Salisbury (From Salisbury Journal)

Olympic torch hopefuls from Salisbury

4:10pm Saturday 3rd September 2011 in News By Hannah White

THE honour of carrying the Olympic torch will go to only a chosen few next year and two Salisbury people are among those in the running.

Charity fundraising Mark Elling and Olympian and Commonwealth Games silver medallist Margaret Thomas are among those to be shortlisted and their nominations will now be reviewed by one of the Olympic committee’s 12 regional selection panels.

Mr Elling, who works for the Trussell Trust, was nominated by his daughter Lizzie, 24, in recognition of his fundraising work for charity, which has seen him raise about £40,000 over the years.

The 52 year old has been raising money for charity since his first London Marathon in 1990, when he ran to raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Society.

He said: “At the time I was working with someone whose mother was diagnosed with the disease and I wanted to do something about it in my own little way.”

Since then, he has run a total of 26 marathons in London, New York, Paris and Sweden, and he plans to run his 27th marathon this month.

Mrs Thomas, an orthodontist, competed in the Seoul Olympics in 1988 in target pistol shooting. She represented Great Britain for ten years in more than 50 events and she represented England in the Commonwealth Games in Canada in 1994 where she won an individual silver medal and two bronzes in pair events.

Since then, Mrs Thomas has been coaching other Olympic hopefuls and in the first two weeks of August she coached the British Ladies Sport Pistol Team at the European Championship in Belgrade.

She was nominated to carry the torch by senior coach Tom Redhead and team member, Anna Rehfisch.

“I was delighted to be nominated and I would very much like to do it,” said Mrs Thomas.