Antony Constantinou has been running for three years, and last week he collected his first winner’s medal – albeit in the oddest of circumstances.

The 50-year-old Carshalton athlete, who runs with Collingwood AC, finished the A20 Path n Downs half-marathon in Maidstone behind the leading pack, clocking one hour 26 minutes 35 seconds.

When a fellow runner told him that the first six home had been disqualified for missing a turning and running only 11.5 miles as a result, Constantinou thought little about it.

Then he plucked his finisher’s ticket and when it told him he had finished seventh, the penny dropped, and he had his first win.

He said: “I had no idea that the leaders had missed a turning, I was just pleased to cross the line myself.

“The leaders knew something was wrong because they had run super-fast times, but I didn’t know.

“While running, I knew there were guys in front of me and I was trying to catch them, but then they just disappeared.

“I remember seeing a marshal panicking at a point on the course where you have to turn off right, and I am wondering if that is were the problem was.

“There’s a full marathon run around the same time, and maybe the marshal thought the leading pack were doing the full distance, and then realised it was not the case.”

He added: “I would have preferred to win outright, but there was no way I was going to beat the younger runners without some intervention.

“It’s a win by default, but I will take it because it’s my first ever.”