Team Gaunt Success at Chariots of Fire Race for Charity

The Chariots of Fire race is an annual event in Cambridge to raise money for good causes. The race was inspired by the film of the same name, which told the story of Olympic gold medallists Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddle. The race is a relay and consists of a circuit of 1.75 miles through the grounds of several Cambridge Colleges including Trinity and King’s. Each runner completes a circuit and each team consists of six runners.

This year over 150 teams took part and it was a pleasure to co-sponsor three teams with the owner of designer clothes shop Giulio. Our veterans team won the veterans’ event and our elite men’s team, skippered by ex-patient of mine, Ian Williamson, came second overall – beaten only by a team containing Olympic athletes!! So congratulations to all who took part. The photograph shows me with the elite men’s team showing off the Michael Gaunt logo on the back of their vests – which obviously a lot of the other runners got a good view of as they sped past.

In addition to cheering home the Giulio-Gaunt team it was a great occasion to meet up with friends, colleagues and patients past and present. It was nice to meet up with Dr Pixie McKenna, from the popular TV health programme ‘Embarrassing Bodies’, who was there to present the prizes. Also, it was a pleasure to be asked to be the unofficial photographer to the Great Dames team – a team of real-life Dames from the House of Lords, skippered by Cambridge’s very own Dame Mary Archer. It really was a great day, great fun and a lot of money raised for good causes.

The Great Dames team included:

• Dame Carol Black, Principal of Newnham College.
• Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones DCMG, former chair of the British Joint Intelligence Committee.
• Dame Gill Morgan, chair of NHS Providers, former Permanent Secretary to the NHS in Wales, former CEO of the NHS Confederation.
• Dame Fiona Woolf, former Lord Mayor of London, trustee of the Science Museum Group.
• Dame Barbara Stocking, President of Murray Edwards College, former CEO of Oxfam.
• Dame Mary Archer, chair of the Science Museum Group, former chair of Cambridge University Hospitals.