Vincent De Bontin was blown away by the local support he received last weekend when he travelled all the way from France to participate in the Parish Walk.

He and a supporter journeyed from Le Creusot, south of Dijon in the Saône-et-Loire department.

Upon their arrival they had no form of transport for back-up and little idea of the terrain or the route of the 85-mile event.

Carolyn Blencoe of Ramsey heard of their plight and offered to assist.

All she knew was that someone was looking for help with the Parish Walk from away, so decided to lend a hand.

‘Turned out I was helping someone who is super quick and a bit of a wild card,’ she said.

The next day Carolyn posted: ‘Now I’m driving the car all day with someone [Vincent’s helper] who is French and doesn’t speak English, trying to help someone who is a speedy walker and is wanting to do super well.’

Admitting to feeling the pressure, she added: ‘So, a lot of Google translations over the next 15 hours or so. Wish now that I’d concentrated more with Madame Moorhouse and Dr Kewley to get that GCSE in French 30 years ago!’

De Bontin arrived with only limited knowledge of the Isle of Man and the Parish Walk, but he has quite a CV. He regularly competes in 100km events, normally on flat tracks or short circuits of towns, nothing with the undulations of Mona’s Isle.

He won a 24-hour walking race in Bourges, west of Dijon and south of Paris, in March of this year and managed to complete more than 200km (120 miles) to win the event round the old city centre [local man Andrew Titley walked an event there in 2013]. De Bontin actually covered 124 miles in the 24 hours - most impressive.

Vincent’s sole intention in coming to the island was to win the Parish Walk, so he was extremely disappointed to finish second.

Without doubt he’s the fastest first-time finisher but he didn’t receive a trophy at Monday evening’s presentation as the Millennium Shield for the best newcomer award is for a local only.

Vincent did get a huge reception at the Comis Hotel prize presentation on Monday evening, having also been applauded all the way round the course by the thousands of spectators.

His time of 15 hours 15 minutes 20 seconds would have been fast enough to win the event 12 months ago, but it was 52 minutes slower than local man Callum Gawne who pulled out all the stops to achieve a new outright record of 14:22.45.

Carolyn Blencoe’s support didn’t end at the finish line late on Saturday evening, she delivered him to the presentation on Monday evening and dropped him off at the airport on Tuesday, having also taken his friend to Ronaldsway on Sunday.

As results secretary Karen Kneale commented: ‘Carolyn was amazing, I’m not sure she expected to be following a competitor planning on going the whole distance when she first offered. It was a pure act of kindness, we need more selfless people in this life.’