Marathon intruder Horan avoids jail

The Irish former priest who obstructed Brazilian athlete Vanderlie de Lima in the men's Olympic marathon yesterday has been sentenced in Athens to 12 months in prison, but has been released on probation. 

De Lima was in the lead after running just over 21 miles when Neil Horan pushed him into the crowd. 

The 57-year-old Kerryman, who lives in southern England, also disrupted the British Grand Prix last year. He was sentenced to two months in jail for aggravated trespass on that occasion.

De Lima lost around seven or eight seconds because of the incident and within five minutes, Italy's Stefano Baldini had caught and passed him before stretching out his lead.

Baldini entered the Panathinaiko Stadium alone and ran through the tape in 2hr 10min 55sec.

Mebrahtom Keflezighi of the United States took the silver medal in 2:11:29 and behind him, Lima managed to shrug off the attack and hold off the fast-closing Jon Brown of Britain to hang on for the bronze medal in a time of 2:12:11.

Afterwards de Lima said he believed the incident may have cost him gold: "If that spectator didn't jump in front of me in the middle of the race, who knows what would have happened? Maybe I would have won. It disturbed  me a lot," he said.

However, many observers concluded that he would have been caught by Baldini and Keflezighi even if the attack hadn't occurred.

Brazil's Olympic Committee has said it will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over the assault. The Brazilians asked for de Lima to be  given a duplicate gold medal, but the request was turned down. 

Police officials said Horan had arrived early on Sunday on a British Airways flight. He told police that he grabbed de Lima to prepare for the second coming of Christ.

Filed by James Boylan