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Wine lover completes London Marathon – whilst knocking back a glass at every mile marker 

A WINE lover has completed the London Marathon – all whilst knocking back a different glass of vino for every mile he runs. 

Tom Gilbey has gained a large following on social media for his wine tasting content and ran the popular marathon on Sunday with a twist appropriate to his hobby. 

With the marathon measuring 26.2 miles exactly, it meant Tom downed a whopping 25 glasses of wine – managing to guess an impressive 21 of them correct to any extent. 

Video of Tom’s boozy run shows him explaining the challenge that lies ahead, as he stands in his running gear. 

The sommelier had a total of 25 glasses of wine throughout the marathon.
The sommelier had a total of 25 glasses of wine throughout the marathon.

He says: “It’s London marathon day, we’re starting off with a red, we’re doing 26 wines, one per mile. Let’s go.”  

The video then cuts to his first mile mark and his first tasting with Tom filmed approaching the barrier marking the track and hilariously pulling a wine glass from his waistband.  

He is poured a glass of red and, as a bewildered spectator looks on, Tom proceeds to smell and taste the wine before submitting his guess.  

Starting off strong, Tom’s first guess – a 2018 pinot noir from Burgundy – was spot on and he continues to his second mile marker.  

At his second marker he again guesses the wine correctly after tasting and moves off to his third.  

The video goes on as Tom knocks back the miles and the wine, guessing each glass at least partly correctly.  

On his fourteenth stop Tom is spotted by a fan and pauses to take a photo with her, offering the runner a glass of wine which she politely declines.  

Tom guesses his 14th glass completely wrong however, before pulling a face at the camera and setting off again.  

Towards stop 20 a slightly tipsy and sweaty Tom appears to be slowing down a bit but pushes on regardless.  

Impressively Tom manages to go on to finish his boozy marathon with impressive numbers having guessed 7 wines fully correct and 14 partly correct.  

The wine aficionado managed to run the full 26 miles, slamming back 25 glasses of vino and raising a whopping £10,000 for his chosen charity Sobell House.  

Tom shared his challenge to social media yesterday with the caption: “26.2 miles. 25 wines tasted blind. 7 fully correct, 4 wrong and 14 mostly right. Over £10k raised”  

The video has since received over 258,600 likes and more than 1,500 comments from social media users left stunned by Tom’s impressive accomplishment.  

One user said: “This man drank 26 different wines & still managed a sub-5 marathon. let that sink in.”  

Another added: “If this was a regular thing at marathons, I might actually be convinced to enter one.”  

A third joked: “I’d love to do exactly this, bar the running bits.”  

Another replied: “Being a marathon runner and a sommelier are two of the most pretentious hobbies, but I absolutely love this guy.”  

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