Between 11 March (Commonwealth Day) and 10 August 2002, as part of the preparations for the upcoming Commonwealth Games and to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen's Golden Jubilee, a national Spirit of Friendship Festival was organised.
On 9 July, a few weeks before the Games began, a sculpture outside the new national headquarters of the English Institute of Sport at SportCity was unveiled by the middle-distance runner Steve Cram.
This sculpture, commissioned in late 2001, was created in a little over eight weeks by Altrincham-based artist, Colin Spofforth, who had submitted to Manchester City Council his idea for a heroic-sized sculpture of a sprinter as a means of celebrating the beauty, power and determination of the competing athletes.
Reaching thirty feet high, weighing seven tonnes, and titled The Runner, this unique larger-than-life bronze statue of a male sprinter surmounting a bronze globe was, at the time, the United Kingdom's largest sporting sculpture.
It depicts the very moment the runner leaves the blocks once the starter's gun has fired.

From 2005 to 2009 a Thomas Heatherwick sculpture, B of the Bang, was situated to the southeast of the stadium at the junction of Ashton New Road and Alan Turing Way.
Built after the Commonwealth Games to commemorate them, it was the tallest sculpture in the United Kingdom.
However, numerous structural problems led to the 184 ft.
sculpture being dismantled in 2009 for safety reasons.
In 2014, money recovered by the Manchester City Council as a result of lengthy legal battles consequent to this debacle was used to fund a new £341,000 public sculpture a few hundred yards further south.
Between 11 March (Commonwealth Day) and 10 August 2002, as part of the preparations for the upcoming Commonwealth Games and to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen's Golden Jubilee, a national Spirit of Friendship Festival was organised. On 9 July, a few weeks before the Games began, a sculpture outside the new national headquarters of the English Institute of Sport at SportCity was unveiled by the middle-distance runner Steve Cram. This sculpture, commissioned in late 2001, was created in a little over eight weeks by Altrincham-based artist, Colin Spofforth, who had submitted to Manchester City Council his idea for a heroic-sized sculpture of a sprinter as a means of celebrating the beauty, power and determination of the competing athletes. Reaching thirty feet high, weighing seven tonnes, and titled The Runner, this unique larger-than-life bronze statue of a male sprinter surmounting a bronze globe was, at the time, the United Kingdom's largest sporting sculpture. It depicts the very moment the runner leaves the blocks once the starter's gun has fired.
From 2005 to 2009 a Thomas Heatherwick sculpture, B of the Bang, was situated to the southeast of the stadium at the junction of Ashton New Road and Alan Turing Way. Built after the Commonwealth Games to commemorate them, it was the tallest sculpture in the United Kingdom. However, numerous structural problems led to the 184 ft. sculpture being dismantled in 2009 for safety reasons. In 2014, money recovered by the Manchester City Council as a result of lengthy legal battles consequent to this debacle was used to fund a new £341,000 public sculpture a few hundred yards further south.
City of Manchester Stadium