KELLY HOLMES wants another gold medal in case the first one wears out. Having already won the Olympic 800 metres title, Holmes qualified last night for the final of the 1,500 metres. She ran another immaculate race in the semi-final and was asked where she kept the medal that she won on Monday. “It’s on my bed and I keep stroking it,” she said. “It’s going to be worn out when I get home.”
As Holmes looks increasingly as if she will achieve the double here tomorrow, or at least earn a second medal, how Paula Radcliffe must envy her. Radcliffe’s decision whether to run the 10,000 metres tonight is probably the most eagerly awaited in British athletics history. The indications are that, five days after being traumatised in the marathon, she will give it a go.
Last night Holmes adopted her now familiar tactic of running from the back in the early stages. Last with 800 metres to go in the second semi-final and seventh at the bell, she did most of her work around the top bend and at the start of the home straight, finishing second.
There looked no more comfortable qualifier, although none of her predicted strongest challengers fell by the wayside. The presence of all three Russians, Natalya Yevdokimova, Olga Yegorova and Tatyana Tomashova, looks ominous, although Hasna Benhassi, from Morocco, the runner-up in the 800 metres, and Elvan Abeylegesse, from Turkey, who broke the 5,000 metres world record in June, are dangerous, too.
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Holmes, though, has the confidence that goes with having a gold medal on the bed. During a day off on Wednesday, she relaxed with friends, not only from athletics but also from judo, in which she is a former Army champion. “I am just taking what comes,” she said.
If her psychologist can get her thinking the same way and she keeps the pressure below boiling point, Radcliffe may yet emerge from these Games with her head held high. As improbable as it seemed on Sunday, when she dropped out of the marathon at 22½ miles, and on Monday, when she was still tearful and red-eyed, Radcliffe looks set to take to the track tonight. She has run each day this week, her medical tests have apparently given her the all-clear and she is not injured, so what has she to lose? The psychological damage inflicted by the events of Sunday can hardly be made worse. And if she declines, would she not wonder for the rest of her life what might have been? In three Olympics, Radcliffe has yet to step on to the podium, so any medal now would be regarded as a triumph. She is also helped by the absence of Berhane Adere, the world champion from Ethiopia.
If Radcliffe had no intention of running, why would she still be here? Amid the tears, regrets and inability to offer an explanation for her first defeat in four marathons, the one forward-looking observation that she made was that she wanted to “get out there and try and redeem something for all the work I have put in”. In delaying her decision, Radcliffe has prevented any build-up of pressure, which, given the apparent lack of a medical explanation, may have caused her to drop out on Sunday. Either that or it was heat exhaustion, a difficulty that she would not face in the 10,000 metres. The race is scheduled for 9.50pm local time.
Radcliffe will also be aware that there is a precedent that, if not exact, is similar. Tegla Loroupe, the Kenyan who was the marathon world record-holder at the time, ran that event at the Olympics in Sydney four years ago but suffered stomach problems and could finish only thirteenth. Six days later, Loroupe appeared in the 10,000 metres final and stuck with Radcliffe’s pace until two laps from home, finishing fifth.
Radcliffe would not want to finish there, but she has not had to run a semi-final in between, as Loroupe did three days after the marathon.
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Not since 1984 has a decision on a British athlete held the country’s attention in the way that Radcliffe’s has these past few days. Then, the spotlight was on Steve Ovett, who, having been taken away on a stretcher after the 800 metres final in Los Angeles after losing his Olympic title, was embroiled in a controversy over whether he would reappear for the 1,500 metres.
Ovett was taken to hospital and put on a drip and the British Amateur Athletic Board threatened to withdraw him from the metric mile. But Ovett threatened legal action and was allowed to run, only to drop out on the last lap suffering breathing difficulties.