Paula's road to glory

"Apart from those in the running community who adore her, Paula is completely anonymous here but if she was to win, it would really put her on the map here," claimed race director Allan Steinfeld.

"The race founder, Fred Lebow, used to say that the race could turn you into a star and if you were already a star, you'd shine even brighter. That's Paula."

While many in British athletics fret about Radcliffe's return, believing she is rash to dive straight back into arguably the highest-quality field ever assembled in a big city marathon so soon after the physical and psychological traumas of Athens, Steinfeld sees no gamble.

"Okay, maybe nothing can completely make up for her Olympic disappointment but this race is geared to provide a major, major consolation for her.

"There'll be nearly three million people lining the streets here in the media capital of the world. Another 250million are going to be watching on television in 125 countries. If she was to win, the world would know it."

That's because the event has become a unique part of America's sporting landscape. Chicago was where Radcliffe first broke the world record but New York is the only place to make your marathon name here.

It's the land that long ago forgot athletics but one race's place as the biggest, most inspiring, best supported mass participation event in the country has never stopped flourishing. No other mere foot race could command nationwide coverage on NBC.

They are prepared to pay for the best, too. When Radcliffe told organisers from her training base in Arizona that she wanted to run, they apparently did not blink about paying her in the region of 500,000 dollars just for taking part, with the possibility that she could glean another 170,000 dollars in prize money and time bonuses.

Was she really still worth such a fortune after Athens had punctured the aura?

"Absolutely. Worth every cent," said Steinfeld. "One off day doesn't mean she's still anything other than the greatest woman runner we've ever seen. She is the icing on our cake."

Yet even though her comeback is a must see attraction for a nation which watched its sporting heroine disintegrate on the Athens roadside 77 days earlier - the BBC will again have live coverage but hope for a happier ending this time - the irony is that here Radcliffe is not even seen as the event's main plotline.

The locals are much more interested in Deena Kastor, the all-American gal from the little Californian town of Mammoth Lakes who succeeded where Radcliffe failed in the Athens marathon, starting tortoise-fashion in the murderous heat but finishing like a hare to pass the stricken Briton on the road and take the bronze, the first Olympic medal won by a US marathoner for two decades.

YOU would have thought the best thing to happen to the New York marathon would be for either Athens silver medallist Meb Keflezighi, in the men's race, or 31-year-old Kastor, who has a touch of Radcliffe's down-to-earth niceness about her, to become the first US winners in New York since Alberto Salazar 22 years ago.

Oddly, though, the organisers have just about broken the bank for an Englishwoman to spoil the script and, listening to Kastor at the Tavern on the Green race headquarters in Central Park yesterday, it almost sounded as if she had convinced herself that Radcliffe really will.

"I don't see her (Paula) as any more vulnerable. She's still the toughest runner I know," said the American. "Absolutely, she starts as the favourite.

"I watched the Athens race back at home and it was terrible to see her break down the way she did.

"When you know that such a lovely person has invested so much time and energy in preparing for a single competition and the weight of the world - well, the weight of Britain for sure - falls on her shoulders, it's devastating to see.

"Yet just because she succumbed to the pressure once after dealing with it so well on so many other occasions doesn't make her any less of a spectacular athlete."

Just how spectacular, Steinfeld thinks we will be reminded on Sunday.

He'd kill for a US victory but, pressed for a prediction, admitted almost ruefully: "Yes, I believe Paula will win it."

And, of course, if she could make it there, couldn't she still make it anywhere? Like Beijing?