Aussie marathon team returning home

AN Australian team at the Boston Marathon is expected home within days after avoiding twin bombings that killed at least three people and injured more than 100.

Australian athlete Emma Cameron was competing in the marathon and had reached the 41km mark, about a kilometre from the site of the explosions, when they occurred.

She was running as part of the Indigenous Marathon Project (IMP) and was in Boston with the head of the organisation Tim Rowe and IMP founder Robert de Castella.

Spokeswoman for the group Laura Oldfield said the 31-year-old runner was safe but distressed.

“She has pretty much run a marathon, feeling pretty horrible anyway, and after all this it is a bit much for her,” Ms Oldfield said.

Cameron’s mother, Alicia Cameron, said she was relieved to know her daughter was OK.

“She (Emma Cameron) said there was a lady in front of her who was scared and she turned around and told them that there was an explosion,” Ms Cameron told ABC radio.

“Before she left on Friday to go to Boston I said some prayers for her, for my daughter to be safe … and I knew that she would be OK,” she said.

The three IMP members in Boston were expecting to leave the city on Tuesday (local time) and be back in Sydney on Thursday.

De Castella and Rowe were at a hotel when they heard the explosions and realised that something serious had happened.

“There was obviously a fair bit of chaos and pandemonium at the finish line,” said de Castella, a former Boston Marathon winner.

“We knew that Emma was still quite some distance from the finish and that she would be safe out on the course,” he said in a statement.

Officials are trying to determine if any Australians were killed or injured in the blasts.

It is unknown who set off the blasts but US President Barack Obama has vowed that whoever is responsible will be brought to justice.

Source: news.com.au Picture: washingtonpost.com
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