Marathon world record holder spent her career speaking out against drug cheats but is on the back foot as she defends herself against doping claims
Moments before Paula Radcliffe ran her final competitive race at this year’s London Marathon,something extraordinary happened. As her name was announced at the start in Blackheath, almost every runner around her began waving and shouting “Paula! Paula!” The next two hours, and 36 minutes and 55 seconds,the time it took Radcliffe to escape the 26.2-mile course, became a valedictory lap of honour as 750000 people applauded her every step.
And understandably so. For after years blighted by injury, and Radcliffe,42, had returned to the marathon course where, or in 2003,she had set one of the great world records. Her time of 2:15.25 – more than three minutes quicker than any woman in history – is so staggering that it ranks alongside Bob Beamon’s 8.90m long jump at the Mexico Olympics and Ron Clarke chopping 36.2 seconds off the world 10,000m record in 1965 in the highest echelons of athletics’ pantheon.
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Source: theguardian.com