A Sutton-based athlete has won the UK's most high profile 10km race.

Professional runner Scott Overall, 34, won the annual Virgin Sport British 10k on Sunday (July 9) as he raced past London’s most iconic sights.

He told Sutton Guardian that the victory was in preparation for the Berlin Marathon in September.

“I always like the opportunity to run in London,” he said.

“Obviously not every race will live up to the standard of London 2012, that was absolutely amazing but there’s a lot of races in London now. It’s always special to take in the sights and the crowd.”

It was the first time that Overall had competed in the British 10k but he believes his time of 31 min 5 sec was “nothing special” and not as fast as he hoped.

Overall has lived in Sutton for six years and is a member of the Blackheath & Bromley Harriers running club.

The next big challenge for him is the Berlin Marathon with the ambition being to use the race to obtain qualification for next year’s Commonwealth Games.

Competing in Berlin is something Scott relishes as he ran his best ever time of 2hr 10min 55 sec to finish fifth in 2011 which was enough to qualify for the GB 2012 Olympic team.

“Once I crossed the line in Berlin, if someone would have said I wouldn’t run any quicker in future I wouldn’t have believed them.

“I know what I need to do to do it,” Overall added.

The London 2012 Olympic Games left Overall “disappointed” as he finished in 61st place.

He said: “Running at a home Olympics isn’t something everyone experiences. Despite the race not going to plan it was fantastic to be involved in that home atmosphere.”

Unfortunately for Overall he wasn’t selected to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

The qualification trial was the 2016 London Marathon where subsequent blood tests revealed that Overall was suffering from glandular fever.

Overall said: “I was disappointed not to be selected for Rio. I was the second quickest Brit in the year. I was sixth in London Marathon with glandular fever and then things got political.

“The first two guys were automatically selected. Then it was between me and another athlete. They selected another athlete despite me being quicker.”

He added: “The Olympics comes around only ever four years. I’m 34 years old so it’s unlikely I will make Tokyo 2020 so that was my last Olympic games. It was an unfortunate timed illness.”

Overall's focus is now on the Berlin Marathon where he hopes to put in a career best performance.

The Berlin Marathon will be held on September 24 with the Commonwealth Games being hosted in Australia in April 2018.

Virgin Sport British 10k was the second Virgin Sport event of 2017, following Hackney (30 April), before further events this year in Oxford (8th October) and San Francisco (13-15 October).