Paula Radcliffe is clearly the most dominant women’s marathoner of her era – and arguably the best of all time.
Only twice has the world record-holder tasted defeat, and both times she came off failure in the Olympics looking for redemption in New York.
The great Brit achieved it in 2004, and she’ll try again tomorrow when she leads the best women’s field in New York City Marathon history, and one of the toughest ever outside of the Olympics.
Those Olympics have been her bane. She’s won seven of her nine marathons; the only exceptions are a DNF in Athens and 23rd-place finish in Beijing.
“Desperately I didn’t want it to be that this year. I wanted to be able to come back and defend [in New York], having had things work out the way I wanted in Beijing; but that didn’t happen,” said Radcliffe, 34, who said 2 hours, 20 minutes is possible tomorrow. She ran a disappointing 2:32:38 in China.
She’d sustained a stress fracture in her left femur and her doctors’ prognosis kept changing. With just weeks to train for Beijing, she gutted through the race despite a lack of mileage and a pronounced limp.
After having to quit during the Athens race, she rebounded with a 2:23.10 victory here. Now – after winning here last year in 2:23.09 just 10 months after giving birth to daughter Isla – Radcliffe is hoping history repeats itself with a title defense.Radcliffe has everything a marathoner could have, including a 2:15.25 world record; everything except Olympic gold.
But tomorrow, with 11 weeks to recover and legs completely fresh and healthy, she’s looking to rebound.
“The Olympics is something I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl. It’s heartbreaking and disappointing I’ve missed out on [two],” said Radcliffe.
“You go through thinking how unfair it is I had to get injured just before the Olympics twice. So yeah, I go through [wondering], ‘Is it cursed?’
“You have to be grateful and thankful because I’ve had had lot of luck in other races.”