In defence of Ms Radcliffe
‘I hate the way the media fawn over Paula Radcliffe’. - Comment on BBC site.
‘The marathon has moved on now, she has been left behind.’ Ditto.
‘Paula Radcliffe has been accused by her critics of being a bottler’, and:
‘When Radcliffe collapsed in Athens four years ago, notable columnists descended upon her as if she had brought shame on the nation simply by being human.’ Both from a national newspaper, the first from a commment, the second from an article by an athletics correspondent.
As everyone knows, Paula Radcliffe won the New York Marathon in style yesterday (as we predicted she would), and there seems to have been some surprise at the fact in the media. Due possibly to her showing in Beijing, or more generally to the common perception that she can’t perform on the global stage and runs for money in big city marathons.
Steve Ovett is quite rightly lauded as one of the greatest runners ever to lace up a pair of spikes. He was a godlike runner who added dedication to his huge talent to produce a string of world records and championship victories. Hang on, though. He couldn’t win the 1500m in Helsinki, in the inaugural World Championships, and his performances in Los Angeles in 1984 were nowhere. He ended his career with one Olympic gold and one bronze, both from Moscow 1980, and on the world stage, that was it. For someone of his talent, his medal tally has got ‘bottler’ written all over it. But we know this is not true, and as far as I am aware, no one has ever labelled him as such. When Ovett didn’t perform it was down to interruptions to his preparations due to illness or injury. This happens to every elite runner. Sometimes a bad patch coincides with the big global championships, and that’s life. Shortly after being beaten into a very disappointing 4th in Helsinki in 1983, Ovett broke the world 1500m record. He had swiftly got back to a peak of fitness, and back to his unbeatable self.
Steve Cram, who was the winner of that 1500m race in Helsinki, and also one of the greatest runners in history, finished his career with one Olympic medal, a silver, and that World gold. Not much better than
Ovett’s haul, so presumably, given again the mismatch betwen talent, world record performances and global medals, also a bottler? Of course not, and no one would ever say so. Cram was considered a very hot favourite for 1500m gold in Seoul in 1988 but injury got in the way. It’s part and parcel of running. He certainly didn’t bottle it.
Now, as a middle-distance runner, you can race a lot. While you are at your peak, you might be able to produce quite a few top-class races in, say, a three-week window. So if you fail in a global race, you can, as Ovett did, go out and wow the world a moment or two later. And of course you can use the first race in a sequence of five or six races as a sharpener, part of the training process. And have a little rest midseason. and come back strong in August or September.
Life is not like that for a marathoner. Which is something the lard-arsed media seem to conveniently overlook when it comes to someone like Paula Radcliffe. She didn’t bottle it at Athens, she was ill. She didn’t bottle it in Beijing either, she had a stress-fracture. But it simply not feasible as a marathoner to go out 10 days later and make amends for letting down the fickle and for the most part equally lard-arsed British public by setting a new world record. When a top marathon runner steps up to the line and then fails, that failure is magnified by the fact that it stands out starkly in a season of little or no other races. But it’s a fairly simple concept to grasp, isn’t it?
Let’s be clear. Ms Radcliffe has a record, 2.15.25 that many elite men would not beat, let alone women. She has come back from injury to beat a quality marathon field - make that ‘destroy a quality marathon field’ - by two minutes. She did the same to win the World Championship in 2005. As we said in an earlier blog, when she is fit, she is untouchable - still. The media do fawn over her, because that is what the media tend to do. But being fawned over for being the very best in the world is to be expected. Look at the fawning David Beckham gets/got, and he was just a fairly good player with one very refined skill.
The marathon hasn’t moved on - no one is getting near Paula’s record. She’s not a bottler. The media have in them several hypocritical, ignorant backstabbers who are happy to berate her if she fails to reach her high standards every time she chooses to race. Let’s celebrate the fact that one of the greatest runners of all time is a Brit and a wonderful human and ignore the media bleating.
Happy running!