The advertising at PBP started already in 1999. A few AUK members, including myself, were present at teh LRM stand and were part-time assisting LRM, part-time advertising LEL. THis already led to a larger influx of foreign riders.
During my first LEL, in 1997, there wer a handful, with a surprising amount of South-Africans. The only foreign language spoken during that LEL was a combination of Dutch and Afrikaans
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The first larger groups to enter outside of this were a bunch of Italians starting in Harlow and a sizeable group of Germans. This was the result of the 1999 campaign at PBP. Italy just started as a randonneuring country in '95 with 3 riders at PBP, LEL was the first major ride with a larger Italian contingent. When Harlow started to be nearly full we directed a few riders to the Thorne start, they had a different experience as the Harlow starters. Harlow gave already an international feeling, Thorne was essentially an AUK ride with a few foreigners sitting in. BTW, the Harlow start did have an influence on the mudguard debate as it became clear how uncommon this rule was.
In 2005 there were for the first time a few national coordinators in several countries, a policy which was expanded for 2009 (internet being a lot less common back then). The amount of foreigners started booming, especially for the Lea Valley start.
The original idea of recruiting foreign riders came from Sheila who asked me to assist. I more or less served as international contact from 1999 to 2009. The 2005 LEL was the turning point, after this event the reputation of LEL immensely grew, with the result that after PBP 2007 all publicity was virtually halted since we would be overbooked anyway. This was the first time that it became apparant to me that LEL could reach more than 1000 participants, although not everyone believed this.
To conclude, the internationalisation of LEL was a deliberate policy of people involved with running LEL and started back in the days of Bernie.