Golden Radcliffe's lustre restored

Published on Monday 15 August 2005 01:47

IF THERE was any lingering self-doubt, it was very well concealed. If there were lasting ill effects from the 10,000 metres, they were minimal to non-existent. Eight days after that race, in which she finished a lowly ninth, Paula Radcliffe reasserted her pre-eminence in the world of distance running yesterday, winning the marathon to claim Britain's only gold medal of the world championships.

Radcliffe also led Britain to third in the team competition, with Mara Yamauchi from Harrow finishing 18th and Scotland's Hayley Haining coming in 25th. The team event counted as the 11th Marathon World Cup, and thus did not figure in the world championships medal table, but it was a remarkable result all the same, with the British pushing Ethiopia out of third place.

After the trauma of last year's Olympics, in which she dropped out of the marathon and then failed to complete the track race, this was proof, to anyone who required it, that Radcliffe has what it takes to triumph at major championships. She holds the world record; she has won on the road in London and New York; and now, six years on from track silver in Seville, she has won her first world-championship title.

"It's definitely very special - right up there with running the world record," said Radcliffe, who finished in 2hr 20.57mins. "It was important as the world-record holder to show I can win major titles as well.

"I'm just very happy and relieved to win. I knew I was in good shape and very capable of winning.

"It's different from last year, because I came into the championships in such good shape with no health worries. So it was just about running and enjoying it."

Whatever the months of technical planning that went into yesterday's run, in the event it was simplicity itself. Radcliffe led from the start and retained it for all but a couple of seconds, becoming more and more dominant as the race progressed.

The two athletes who tried to stay with her at first, Asha Gigi of Ethiopia and Yumiko Hara of Japan, paid the price for doing so before the halfway stage, dropping back into the pack. They eventually finished 16th and eighth respectively.

The most sustained challenge, which began around the 15-kilometre point, came from the eventual silver medallist and defending champion, Catherine Ndereba of Kenya, and from the Romanian who ended up with bronze, Constantina Tomescu.

After a bad spell in which she dropped back to fourth, Tomescu forced her way back into second just after the midpoint of the race, and later had a spell in which she seemed to be toying with Radcliffe, edging in front briefly to see how the Briton would respond.

But Radcliffe barely noticed, concentrating instead on following her own race plan. By the 30km mark, she had surged into an 11-second lead on the Romanian, with Ndereba a further five seconds back.

The Kenyan eventually overtook Tomescu, and tried to close on Radcliffe. But, as she explained later, when she attempted to push ahead her calves began to cramp up, so she had to take it easier than she wanted to.

Radcliffe could in fact have done with some opposition to force the pace. "If somebody had been with me I could have pushed it up," she said. Even so, she finished strongly enough, stretching her lead on Ndereba to over a minute. The Kenyan was second in 2:22.01, and Tomescu third in 2:23.19, just ahead of the Ethiopian woman who has been Radcliffe's nemesis in past cross-country events, Derartu Tulu.

"I knew I was running a good pace, so I just had to keep it up until the end," Radcliffe continued. "I had decided just to go out in a pace that was comfortable but decent, so I was strong enough to surge in the second half of the race. And that's how it turned out.

"The biggest pressure comes from myself. I was coming in in good shape and it was up to me to prove it.

"There was only one risk about running the 10k. I had to make sure I came out of it healthy, and that's why I wore flats for it. I was disappointed, and felt I should have run better, although maybe that was caused by my marathon preparation. But I knew I did come out it healthy.

"It was hard out there, but I enjoyed it quite a bit too. I can enjoy it and take in this during the race. At one point a dog tried to get on to the course but fortunately it was attached to a lead. There was a lot of support out there, and at one point my name was written on the road like in the Tour de France, which was nice. The support came not only from British people, but from the French and the Finns as well."

And, in another sense, the support was also there from her team-mates. Debbie Mason, at 37 the oldest member of the quartet, dropped out, but Yamauchi's 2:31.26 was a personal best, as was Haining's 2:34.41. The Dumfries-born 32-year-old's strong finish ensured Britain of third place, behind Kenya and Japan, but just ahead of the Ethiopians. On this form she should be a strong contender in the Commonwealth Games next Spring.

"I'll have a few weeks off first and see what happens," said Haining, who has been nursing a foot injury for the past six weeks. "We'll have to wait and see how the winter goes. But if I feel OK, yes, I could do the Commonwealth Games." Radcliffe, too, is looking forward to a good break, but there is a part of her thinking further ahead - to Beijing in 2008, and the next Olympics. "Yeah, if I stay healthy," the 31-year-old said when asked if she planned to compete. "But I'm going to go away and relax now."

Radcliffe may not have done the track-and-road double which she hoped for, but she did disprove the contention that it would necessarily be self-destructive to attempt both. Indeed, a year on from Athens, she comes out of these championships with her legend enhanced, and her strategy thoroughly vindicated.