PAULA RADCLIFFE’S Olympic dream died at the roadside here yesterday when, 22½ miles into the women’s marathon, Great Britain’s best hope for an athletics gold medal ground to a halt. Radcliffe, the world record-holder, had won all three of her previous marathons, but her reign as the queen of distance running came to an end on the very day, and in the very race, she would least have wished it.
After a promising start in which she dictated the early pace, Radcliffe pulled up more than three miles from the finish. She had dropped to fourth place and the athlete whose reputation for courage and dignity is second to none was immediately reduced to tears. Twice she tried to start again, but she managed barely a few more steps before she finally gave up.
It was a pitiful sight to see such a fine ambassador for British sport sitting on the kerb, head in hands, shaking her head, a physical and emotional wreck. They talk about the loneliness of the long-distance runner and, with no one on hand to help or comfort her, she was a picture of isolation. Some minutes later she was picked up by event medical staff in an ambulance and taken to the finish.
As Radcliffe was escorted in she was made to suffer one further indignity as she was helped towards the medical tent. Having been through the pain barrier, she now had to pass through the X-ray barrier at a security gate. “I am devastated, I can’t say anything now, I will speak tomorrow,” Radcliffe said. She was later taken to the clinic in the athletes’ village but was said not to have suffered an injury.
The finish was at the historic Panathinaiko Stadium, where the first modern Olympics were staged in 1896. This was a marathon of greater meaning than any before it, not only one with Olympic medals at stake but also held on the course that gave the event its name. But when the 82 runners set off on their journey from the village of Marathon they did so in 36C (95F) heat. Only 66 would finish. As evidence of the effect that the conditions were having, Kenza Wahbi, from Morocco, and Asha Gigi, from Ethiopia, stopped to be sick.
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It was not clear immediately to what extent it was the unbearable heat and hilly course that claimed Radcliffe, or perhaps an interruption to her preparation. There had been reports that she had been troubled by injury in the build-up.
As unthinkable as it seemed last night, Radcliffe has the option to race the 10,000 metres in a straight final on Friday. While she looked a broken woman, this is an athlete whose courage and determination have taken her many times to seemingly impossible conquests. At the same time, though, it is clear that her best chance of Olympic gold has gone. Presuming that she does not work a miracle on Friday, Radcliffe’s next shot at Olympic gold must wait until she is 34, in Beijing in 2008. Although that hardly puts her over the hill as a distance runner, it appears that she is destined to join the list of greats — of which Ron Clarke is distance running’s best example — who never won Olympic gold.
The list she joined last night was that of failed British favourites to win marathon gold. Jim Peters was supposed to win the Olympic marathon in 1952, having set a world record six weeks earlier, but failed to finish; Steve Jones was expected to win the European title in 1986 and led by two minutes before halfway, but ended up last but one.
Victory here went to Mizuki Noguchi in 2hr 26min 20sec. It will make Radcliffe feel no better that she has beaten the Japanese twice in winning the world half-marathon title. Catherine Ndereba, from Kenya, finished second in 2:26.32, with Deena Kastor, from the United States, third in 2:27.20. Radcliffe���s fellow Britons, Liz Yelling and Tracey Morris, the Leeds optician, finished 25th and 29th respectively.
Contrast the tracks of Radcliffe’s tears with those of Kastor. The American was several strides short of the finish line when she began to weep. She had opted for a cautious start, working her way through, and was rewarded with the bronze.
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How Britain reacts to Radcliffe’s misfortune remains to be seen, but Jonathan Edwards, the triple jump world record-holder, had said before the marathon yesterday that, if Radcliffe did not win, she would be regarded as a failure. Edwards recalled how, before the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, “everyone was hanging the gold medal round my neck”. But he was denied by Kenny Harrison, an American, and felt he was depicted as a failure.