The 28-year-old Jeptoo (pictured top) clocked 2 hours 20min 15sec, almost exactly the same time she managed when she finished third at last year's London Marathon, ahead of compatriot Edna Kiplagat, who finished in 2:21:32, and Japan's Yukiko Akaba in third with 2:24:43.

"I knew this morning I was going to run well and there was such a good field you were always worried someone would do better, and it wasn't until around 25 miles that I got that confidence back and I felt I would win," said London 2012 silver medallist Jeptoo, who was running alone ahead of the field as she came into sight of Buckingham Palace with just over half-a-mile to go.

"But again you still have to run to the line because anyone could beat me."

Ethiopia's Gelana continued to race after the crash at about the 15-kilometre mark with Cassidy to finish 16th with 2:36:55, while Cassidy cames in 20th place in his race, almost 11 minutes behind the winner Kurt Fearnley of Australia.

However, Cassidy did not take the collision well and called for a change to the London Marathon programme.


"It's something I have mentioned before," he said.

"I don't know who's responsible, but every year we come to overtake the women, there's 10 chairs going at 20 miles per hour and the poor women are scrambling to find their feet.

"I have a brand new $2,000 (£1,300/€1,500) pair of wheels that are damaged, who's going to pay for them?

"Things have to change.

"The safest thing would be to have the chairs start first because one of these years a woman, is going to have a leg broken, a career ruined.

"It's just not worth having this programme if the races are going to suffer."

Moreover, he was not the only one with this point of view.

In response to a question about whether he thinks the wheelchair races should be started ahead of the women's elite field at the London Marathon to avoid a replay of today's collision, winner of the men's wheelchair race Kurt Fearnley of Australia said: "We've thought it for years".


Meanwhile, both Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe added their voices to the debate.

"Everyone's made aware of how careful you have to be at that particular part of the course where it narrows down in the chairs you have to make a decision where to go," Baroness Tanni, a six-time London Marathon wheelchair race title holder, explained.

"Hindsight is great; perhaps they shouldn't have gone so close to the tables.

"But the danger is that when you're coming from behind and the runner's can't hear you and obviously they're concentrating on the race, if you shout anything it might send them the wrong way.

"I've been in a situation where you say, 'Stay where you are I'm on your right' and they jump right.

"It's one of those situations where the runners and the chairs really need to be aware of what's going on.

"The only other option is to look at the road closures and potentially start the wheelchair race first.

"Then the danger of that is you've got the elite woman passing the more recreational wheelchair athletes."

Radcliffe added: "When I've been out running in the lead and I've got the vehicles around me and I've had wheelchairs come past me you get the warning so you know to expect the wheelchairs coming through.

"As the race progresses the later wheelchair runners have come past me  and made me jump and cut across and it does throw you off your rhythm because you're not expecting it.

"It's very difficult to anticipate exactly when a cross over will come and as Tanni was saying.

"Maybe a way round it would be to have drinks tables in the early stages at either side of the road so the wheelchairs can go one side and the runners the other."

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