Ian Botham

A larger than life personality, Ian Botham was arguably the world's first sporting celebrity of the modern era. Wherever he went, he would capture the public imagination, whether it was with his phenomenal matchwinning exploits, or every bit as often, with his off-the-field activities.

Chief among these have been Botham's tireless commitments to Leukaemia Research, a charity he has supported ever since he was touched by a meeting with child sufferers in the mid-eighties. Between 1985 and 1999, when he embarked on what he avowed would be his last such walk, Botham has raised £4.5 million in eight great treks.

The routes he has taken, and distances he has covered, have been dramatic to say the least. In October 1999, he marched from John O'Groats to Land's End in just 34 days - which worked out at an average of 4.5 miles per hour, and the equivalent of a marathon a day. And in April 1988, he retraced the footsteps of Hannibal by leading a convoy of elephants over the Alps from Perpignan to Turin.

Botham has since been invested by the Duke of Kent as the first President of Leukaemia Research, and his exploits have inspired other sports stars to embark on similar treks. In October 2002, his old Aussie sparring partner, Allan Border, walked 1000km up the East Coast of Australia from Sydney to Brisbane, and more recently, Phil Tufnell, whose own mother died of leukaemia when he was a child, spent a month walking between the cricket grounds of England to raise £250,000 for the charity.