Northern Ireland town 'has UK's fastest runners'

A  Northern Ireland town with a population of just 21,000 has the fastest runners in the UK after data was released here

The annual report from Strava, showed the average speed of athletes using the GPS mapping app in Omagh, County Tyrone, was 5.03 min/km.

Omagh's athletes ran away with the title, beating those in London by two seconds.

Next, came NI once again with runners in Banbridge, County Down third.

Strava, which has tens of millions of users worldwide analysed 24.7m runs throughout the UK in 2017.

A Strava spokesperson said the data suggested users in Northern Ireland were above average in both ability and commitment.

The data showed Northern Ireland had some of the "most committed athletes in the world", said Strava's Gareth Mills.

Collectively, they ran more than 3m kms, and cycled almost 21m kms, in 2017.

He said the running data suggested "a diverse and expanding running community".

Ballymena, Magherafelt and Armagh took first, second and third place for the "longest average cycle ride", the report highlighted. 

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For those who have recently visited Northern Ireland, we expect you will have seen the ample leisure opportunities in and around the towns mentioned.