Paul Sinton-Hewitt | |
---|---|
Born | Peter Paul Sinton-Hewitt 1960 (age 63–64) |
Known for | parkrun |
Awards | Albert Medal (Royal Society of Arts) |
Peter Paul Sinton-Hewitt CBE (born 1960) is the founder of parkrun. [1]
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) "for services to Grassroots Sport Participation" in the 2014 Birthday Honours, [2] and was selected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2016. [3] In December 2019, he was awarded the Albert Medal by the Royal Society of Arts for building a global participation movement. [4]
Born in Southern Rhodesia, [3] Sinton-Hewitt grew up in South Africa. At age five he was made a ward of the state and then lived at boarding schools. He was educated at Potchefstroom High School and was a crew member supporting Bruce Fordyce in the Comrades Marathon. [5]
He moved to the United Kingdom where he was living when he had a breakdown in 1995. He has said that the personal challenges he has experienced, including bullying during childhood, and the way exercise and activity have helped him deal with them, were influential in motivating him in creating parkrun and its inclusive approach to sport. [6]
Sinton-Hewitt started the Bushy Park Time Trial in 2004 whilst unemployed and unable to run due to an injured leg. [7] It evolved into Parkrun – a free 5-kilometre timed running event that takes place every Saturday morning. The first event took place on 2 October 2004, with 13 entrants. In April 2010 a two-kilometre "Junior Parkrun" format was added at Bushy Park for children aged 4 to 14 (held monthly on Sunday mornings). [8] By summer 2018, each weekend roughly 220,000 to 280,000 people participate in about 1,500 Parkruns globally. [9]
In 2018, Sinton-Hewitt completed the Vitruvian Triathlon. [10]
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a London-based organisation.
Loyd Daniel Gilman Grossman is an American-British author, broadcaster, musician, businessman and cultural campaigner who has mainly worked in the United Kingdom. He presented the BBC programme MasterChef from 1990 to 2000 and was a co-presenter, with David Frost, of the BBC and ITV panel show Through the Keyhole from 1987 until 2003.
Matthew Taylor is a British former political strategist and current Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, having previously led the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2021. In 2005, he was appointed by incumbent Prime Minister Tony Blair as head of the Number 10 Policy Unit. He is a writer, public speaker and broadcaster who has been a panellist on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze since 2008. In October 2016, he was appointed Chair of the Review of Modern Employment established by Prime Minister Theresa May; the Taylor Review report Good Work was published in July 2017.
Sir Philip Redmond is an English television producer and screenwriter from Huyton, England. He is known for creating the television series Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks.
Paul Marcellus Elliott is an English former footballer who played as a defender.
The Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) was instituted in 1864 as a memorial to Prince Albert, who had been President of the Society for 18 years. It was first awarded in 1864 for "distinguished merit in promoting Arts, Manufactures and Commerce". In presenting the Medal, the Society now looks to acknowledge individuals, organizations and groups that lead progress and create positive change within contemporary society in areas that are linked closely to the Society's broad agenda.
Jameel Sadik "Jim" Al-Khalili is an Iraqi-British theoretical physicist and science populariser. He is professor of theoretical physics and chair in the public engagement in science at the University of Surrey. He is a regular broadcaster and presenter of science programmes on BBC radio and television, and a frequent commentator about science in other British media.
Bushy Parkrun is a running event that takes place every Saturday morning at 9am in Bushy Park, Teddington, London. It was the very first Parkrun, founded by Paul Sinton-Hewitt in October 2004 under its original name Bushy Park Time Trial. The event has become a pilgrimage for Parkrunners, attracting entrants from across the globe. It is entirely managed by volunteers and is free to enter. The course is 5km in length with a terrain that is mostly footpaths and grass. The run holds the UK record number of entrants with 6,204 people on its 1000th event in 2024. There have been numerous notable participants including the former men's Parkrun record holder Andrew Baddeley, and double Olympic 5 km gold medallist Mo Farah.
Parkrun is a collection of 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) events for runners, walkers and volunteers that take place every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 22 countries across five continents.
Ian McColl, Baron McColl of Dulwich,, is a British surgeon, professor, politician and Conservative member of the House of Lords. McColl was made a life peer for his work for disabled people in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1989, which was gazetted on 29 July 1989 with the style and title of Baron McColl of Dulwich, of Bermondsey in the London Borough of Southwark. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister John Major from 1994 to 1997 for which he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1997.
Paul Warwick Thompson is the current Chair of the British Council. He was Vice-Chancellor of the Royal College of Art from 2009 to 2024.
Denise Anne Lievesley is a British social statistician. She has formerly been Chief Executive of the English Information Centre for Health and Social Care, Director of Statistics at UNESCO, in which capacity she founded the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and Director (1991–1997) of what is now the UK Data Archive.
Deborah Jevans CBE is a British former tennis player and current sports executive.
Sir Adrian Vivian Sinton Hill, is a British-Irish vaccinologist who is Director of the Jenner Institute and Lakshmi Mittal and Family Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford, an honorary Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases, and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Hill is a leader in the field of malaria vaccine development and was a co-leader of the research team which produced the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, along with Professor Sarah Gilbert of the Jenner Institute and Professor Andrew Pollard of the Oxford Vaccine Group.
Thomas Segun Ilube is a British entrepreneur and educational philanthropist and chair of the Rugby Football Union making him the first black chair of a major sport in England. He is the Chair of The King’s Trust in the UK.
Peter Keen CBE is a former cyclist, coach, and now performance director.
Martin James Hewitt is a senior British law enforcement officer who has been serving as the Border Security Commander since September 2024. He is a former soldier and police officer who previously served as chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council from May 2019 to March 2023.
Alexander Amos Yee is a British professional triathlete and distance runner. He is the 2024 World and Olympic champion in standard or 'Olympic' distance triathlon, the second man to win both titles in a single year.
Stephen John Haake is a British sports engineer. He is professor of sports engineering at Sheffield Hallam University, England and is founding director of the university's advanced wellbeing research centre.
Sir Paul Benedict Crossland Carter is a British Conservative local government politician, serving as a councillor in Kent County Council, which he led for 14 years from 2005 until the end of 2019, and as the chair of the County Councils Network special-interest group within the Local Government Association from 2015 until 2020.