Emile Cairess tamed one of the toughest courses in Olympic history to claim Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s best men’s marathon performance in two decades.

Cairess (Leeds City) finished fourth on Olympic debut, the same result posted by Jon Brown at the 2004 Games in Athens, as Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola took gold and an Olympic record.

The 26-year-old, in only his third marathon after two appearances in London, clocked 2:07:29, finishing just 29 seconds outside the medals.

“I’m really proud of myself, I’m really happy with that,” he said.

“I just wanted to give myself a chance. That was my thinking, just try to run as fast as I could until the end. Maybe someone of them would blow up and I could catch them, but it just so happened that three of them didn’t blow up.

“The course was tough, it was really hard. I’ve only done two marathons. London is pretty flat, so that was way harder, with the hills it felt much longer.”

Charlie Spedding was Great Britain’s last Olympic medallist, winning bronze in Los Angeles 40 years ago.

With the next Games taking place in California, Cairess would like to end that run.

“I’ll try to train more, be consistent and not put pressure on myself to do anything else,” he added.

Elsewhere, Philip Sesemann (Andrew Henderson/Leeds City) came home 46th in 2:13:08 and Mahamed Mahamed (Idris Hamid/Southampton) was 11 places further back in 2:15:19.

The women’s marathon gets underway tomorrow at 7:00 BST as Olympic debutants Clara Evans, Rose Harvey and Calli Hauger-Thackery take on the streets of Paris.