One of America's greatest marathoners is coming to Bermuda for the first time next week and plans to return in January to compete in the International Race Weekend half marathon.

Dick Beardsley still ranks as the third fastest American-born marathoner almost 30 years after setting his best time during one of the most famous Boston Marathon finishing line dramas.

He will make his first visit to the Island next weekend as guest speaker at the Mid Atlantic Athletic Club's annual dinner ¿ tickets for which are also available to non-members.

Expected to feature in his talk are stories of his career, an horrific farming accident in later life, his subsequent addiction to prescription drugs and finally his turning his life around and setting up a foundation to help others.

Now aged 53, Beardsley is still running and a dramatic motion picture of his life is expected to start production soon.

His greatest races came at the height of the running boom in the early 1980s. He was the joint winner of the first London Marathon in 1981.

Beardsley and Norwegian Inge Simonsen were famously photographed holding each other's arm aloft as they crossed the finish line in London in a show of sportsmanship on a cold, rainy day in the British capital.

"The London Marathon was huge for me because it was the first time I'd won a marathon. No one knew at that time that the race would go on to become one the world's great marathons," said Beardsley, in an interview with The Royal Gazette this week.

He specifically recalled how many people had predicted there would be no interest in the first major marathon race in the city, but on a miserable, cold and rainy day an estimated one million spectators lined the route, proving the doubters wrong.

"I remember running over Tower Bridge at the halfway point and there was quite a group of us. I made a break and only Inge (Simonsen) came with me.

"We got into an industrial area of London where there were no spectators at all and we did a loop and then came back out to the crowds again. I remember surging and trying to get away from him but not being able to," said Beardsley.

"With about 200 metres to go Inge said something in broken English, but I could not understand him.

"Then a few metres before the finish line we brought our hands up together."

The deliberate dead-heat finish in that first race is the only one yet recorded in the London Marathon's 30-year history.

The following year, in what has since become known as the 'Duel in the Sun,' Beardsley found himself in an epic battle with the-then marathon world record holder Alberto Salazar in Boston.

During the final head-to-head sprint finish Beardsley is seen being momentarily impeded by a motorcycle. It is one of the sport's most famous moments with Salazar winning by two seconds in the closest race finish seen at the historic Boston event. Beardsley set his fastest time of two hours, eight minutes and 53 seconds.

Many still wonder if Beardsley might have won had he not needed to dodge around a motorbike.

"When I watch the last few minutes of that race it still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up," he said.

"The motorcycle got in my way, but I never use that as an excuse. I feel I was outkicked. It is there for people to see and to say what they think would have happened if the motorbike had not got in the way.

"I was flying at the time and it slowed me for a short moment, but because it happened it keeps that marathon race in everyone's mind, and Salazar and I have remained good friends."

In 1989 Beardsley was working on his farm, trying to finish a few tasks before the weather closed in when his shoelace got caught on a spinning piece of machinery, in seconds his whole body was mangled against the machine but, even though he does not know how, he managed to reach far enough to switch off the machine.

Despite having many parts of his body badly broken, he somehow managed to crawl back towards his farmstead to seek help.

Around seven months later he had recovered enough to attempt a five-mile race and was touched to find that the local people had hung out a blue finishing ribbon for him to run through, even though he was well-down the race field as a 'middle-of-the-pack' runner.

But using painkillers following that hospital stay, and a number of subsequent hospital visits after he was twice hit by vehicles while training, and then was involved in a car crash himself, led to Beardsley becoming a prescription drug addict. He would forge prescription notes to feed his habit until eventually he was caught.

His insurance company went 'above and beyond' to pay for his treatment and rehabilitation and it was that experience that led Beardsley and his wide Jill to set up the Dick Beardsley Foundation two years ago.

The Foundation seeks to help other addicts to afford the proper course of rehabilitation, as well as educating schoolchildren and the public about healthy life choices.

Beardsley's life story will soon be even more widely known, because a script has been written, and a director and producer found to make a dramatised film entitled 'Against the Wind'.

In the meantime, he continues to enjoy running and competing in the senior masters' race division as an over-50.

"It (running) has given me so much enjoyment. It is way more than just competition," he said.

"I love going out and I love that hour in the morning when I can think and reflect and work out any problems I have. "

Beardsley is the guest speaker at the Mid Atlantic Athletic Club's annual dinner in the Fairmont Hamilton Princess on Saturday, October 24.

Details and tickets are available by e-mailing Sam Stephens at: shood47@hotmail.com