Helene Diamantides

About

Helene Diamantides (later Helene Whitaker) is a British fell and mountain ultrarunner born in North Yorkshire who took up fell running at Durham University. In 1992, partnered with Martin Stone, she became the first woman to win a fell race outright against men, taking the inaugural Dragon's Back Race across Wales (220 miles over five days) in 38:38; twenty years later she returned to finish 4th overall and 1st woman in the 2012 edition. She holds the women's Bob Graham Round record (20:17, set 1988) and beat the men's record on the Paddy Buckley Round (20:08), was sixth overall on the Ramsay Round (20:24), won the Borrowdale Fell Race four times (her 1999 time of 3:14:45 the second-fastest ever by a woman), and held the Langdale Horseshoe course record from 1992 to 2016. Internationally she won the 1988 Mount Cameroon and Mount Kinabalu races, took 3rd in the 1988 100-mile Hoggar "Super Marathon" in Algeria, and ran Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu in a record 3 days 10 hours with Alison Wright (1987). She now works as a physiotherapist.

Notable Wins

• — Dragon's Back Race 1st (mixed) 1992 with Martin Stone (38:38); Bob Graham Round women's record 1988 (20:17); Borrowdale Fell Race winner x4

Race History