Radcliffe happy with 'warm-up' as Ethiopians streak away

Published on Monday 8 August 2005 00:15

PAULA Radcliffe did not quite admit it yesterday, but her 10,000 metres run was surely no more than a particularly tough training session for her real goal at these world championships - next Sunday's marathon.

The Englishwoman would obviously not have turned down the gold medal had she won the longest track race on Saturday night, but with the eventual winner Tirunesh Dibaba and her fellow- Ethiopians in such devastating form that was always going to be a long shot, and in the end she could finish no better than ninth.

To an extent Radcliffe may have been putting a brave face on things yesterday, for she was certainly surprised by how many athletes refused to be burned off by her pace- setting.

But there were indications, nonetheless, that she had not committed herself absolutely to the 10k - notably the fact that, rather than wearing track spikes she had on flat shoes with mini-spikes, designed specifically for her to minimise the blistering to her feet to ensure that she goes into the marathon not feeling any discomfort. "I feel okay," Radcliffe said. "I've been checked over. I didn't run as fast as I was asking for, but I got a good hard workout. I just didn't have the pace to go with the runners in the last lap. The quality of the field was very strong. At my best I'd be sharper, but a 58-second last lap is frightening, really.

"I went into the race thinking I would give it my best shot. I was surprised there were so many people in the pack."

Such speedy final laps may be frightening, but they are also more and more the norm these days, and anyone as committed to marathon running as Radcliffe cannot expect to re-adapt easily. She would not, however, accept that her career as a track runner was over.

"My 10k track ambitions are not entirely behind me," she insisted. "I'm moving up, [but] I'm not saying I'll never run another global 10k. You can't say that until you hang up your spikes."

In her heart, however, she no longer thinks of herself as a track runner, and that makes defeat so much easier to take. "My main focus was the marathon and I wasn't prepared to compromise that," she continued. "It's a global title and very important to me. It would rank as the pinnacle of my career.

"I see it [the 10k race] as mission accomplished. I didn't think I would run so badly it would give my marathon rivals an advantage.

"The marathon is about going in knowing you are strong and have done the training, and I don't think there are many girls in the marathon who could have run faster than me last night."

One reason that victory in six days' time might be seen more widely as the pinnacle of the 31-year-old's career is the fact that it would be the fourth marathon she has run in the past 12 months.

After the traumatic failure to complete the event in Athens towards the end of last August she came back in the spring to win in New York and London, and a third major victory within that timespan would be virtually unprecedented.

However, when that fact was pointed out to her, she offered a brief reply. "I don't count Athens," she said.

Scotland's Kathy Butler, who dropped out towards the latter stages of the 10,000m after suffering from a stomach upset, has decided not to compete in the 5,000m.