RUGBY League legend Kevin Sinfield was greeted by his "biggest crowd" yet at York Minster as part of his ultra marathon challenge.

 

 

 

Today (November 17) he finished his fifth leg of his Ultra 7 in 7 challenge, which sees him running more than 35 miles a day for seven days.

 

 

 

He arrived at York Minster at 4pm to hundreds of cheering fans who had turned out to support him - despite the rain.

 

 

 

Kevin has taken on the challenge to fundraise for motor neurone disease (MND) research, inspired by his former Leeds Rhinos team mate, Rob Burrow, who is living with the disease, as well as former rugby union player Doddie Weir and former footballer Stephen Darby, who are also living with MND.

 

 

 



 

 

 

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Today's route covered 41 miles, with Kevin setting off at 6.57am in Stokesley.

 

 

 

He made stops at the Blue Bell Inn, Northallerton, at 8.10am, Thirsk Garden Centre at 10am, and the Craig Lidster Racing stables in Easingwold at 12.45pm.

 

 

 

The run ended in York, and Kevin passed through Clifton, Bootham, and High Petergate before arriving at York Minster at 4pm.

 

 

 



 

 

 

As soon as he stopped running, the rugby league legend thanked the crowd for welcoming him to York, which included the York Civic Party.

 

 

 



 

 

 

The Leeds Rhinos great and Leicester Tigers defence coach said: "I'm very tired, thank you to everyone for being here, this is the biggest crowd we've had so far.

 

 

 

"Its been really tough but you have to do something tough to raise funds and awareness.

 

 

 

"Thank you to everyone who has donated - we have raised millions."

 

 

 

He will return to the Minster on Friday (November 18) at 6.57am to start his sixth run, which will cover 35 miles, heading through Micklegate Bar, past York Racecourse, and onto the A64 and into Tadcaster.

 

 

 



 

 

 

Among the crowd was Donna, 68, who said: "Its about raising more awareness of this terrible disease.

 

 

 

"Apart from Stephen Hawking, I never would've thought about or maybe never even heard of MND."

 

 

 

Tomorrow's run will end in Bradford, where Kevin will begin his final run the following day (November 19) and complete the challenge in Old Trafford.

 

 

 

Kevin's first run started in Edinburgh on November 13, and he will have ran 300 miles in total.

 

 

 

He had set an initial goal of raising £77,777 but has so far raised more than £2.7 million on his Just Giving page.

 

 

 

He will split the donations between the MND Association, Leeds Hospital Charity's appeal, MND Scotland, My Name'5 Doddie Foundation, the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation, and the 4ED campaign.

 

 

 

This is Kevin's third challenge for MND, with the previous ones seeing him run seven marathons in seven days in 2020, and running from Leicester Tigers' Welford Road stadium to Leeds Rhinos' Headingley stadium in under 24 hours last year.

 

 

 

He has raised more than £5 million for MND from his challenges.