Holmes and Khan team up at Bupa Great Manchester Run

While Britain’s Jo Pavey and Kenya’s Micah Kogo left Manchester as worthy winners of the elite races at the BUPA Greater Manchester Run, they were no more delighted than two of Britain’s great Olympians who thoroughly enjoyed their first taste of the atmosphere of Britain’s biggest 10 kilometre race.

Joining a record field of 21,500, Dame Kelly Holmes, 800 and 1,500 metres Olympic champion at Athens in 2004 and boxing star Amir Khan, Olympic lightweight silver medallist found it a thrilling experience.

Kelly Holmes, who said before the race - “remember I'm running for fun, my competitive days are over" - had a time of 37.46 mins to finish 181st overall and 33rd in the women’s race. While Amir Khan finished just ten seconds slower in 37.56 mins to be 191st.

Amir Khan said: “It was brilliant and I have to thank Kelly for my time. I run a couple of times a week, but towards the end I was starting to flag and Kelly kept urging me on. I never imagined it would be so good. I am already looking forward to the next one.”

The field included many celebrity runners and fun runners raising funds for charities. There was a strong turn-out of stars past and present from three TV Soaps.

Coronation Street were represented by Tupele Dorgu (Kelly Crabtree), Jennifer James (Geena Gregory), David Neilson (Roy Cropper) and Ray MacAllan (Vinnie Evans).

From Hollyoaks, there was Sarah Jayne Dunn (Mandy Richardson), Darren Jeffries (OB) and Matthew Littler (Max Cunningham).

While from Emmerdale there was Tony Audenshaw (Bob Hope), Chris Chittell (Eric Pollard), Jeff Hordley (Cain Dingle), and Ursula Holden-Gill (Alice Dingle).

The race was started by another of Britain’s sporting Dames, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Britain’s greatest ever Paralympian who retired last week at the end of a distinguished career and Ricky Hatton, world light welterweight champion, making his last UK appearance before going to Las Vegas to fight Jose Luis Castillo.

Jo Pavey produced a world-class performance to win the elite women’s race. The 33-year-old took control in the last kilometre to win in 31.41 mins, with Hungary's Aniko Kalovics in second.

In the men's race, Kenyan Micah Kogo broke Haile Gebreselassie's UK all-comers' record by four seconds, finishing in a time of 27:24. Britain's Mo Farah put in an excellent display to finish third in 28:07.

The BUPA Great Manchester Run also marked the start of the Great Activity Campaign – a revolutionary scheme to improve the health of the nation which aims to have 2 million people clocking up 100 million miles of physical activity every year by 2012, through involvement in mass participation events and by their own personal efforts to get fit.

Moments before the start of the BUPA Great Manchester Run, eight celebrity runners clocked up a combined distance of one mile – the first step on the road to 100 million miles.

The eight who took part were Tony Audenshaw, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Ricky Hatton, Dame Kelly Holmes, Amir Khan, Charlie Walduck, who lost 31 stones in his battle against obesity, plus Sarah Barker and Kyle Fowler, winners of Saturday’s boys and girls races in the Tesco Junior Great Manchester Run.