Paula's ultimate test a marathon journey

she prepares with religious zeal and no one could have a bigger heart; she is, quite simply, the best ever.

"Yet you make the smallest mistake here and, in these conditions, however great you are, there's no way back," said Storey, our leading marathon expert. What about those rumours that she really has had an injury that prompted her to visit the clinic of unorthodox doctor Hans Muller-Wohlfahrt in Munich? "Well, I think there's a possibility that she did have a problem which has now completely cleared up," he said. "If there is an issue there still, this course won't forgive you."

The truth is, such is Radcliffe's superiority, we are really scratching around to find reasons why she could lose. How about the fact that she has not run a summer marathon before? Well, that's true of most of the elite who have stuck just to the spring and autumn classics and, don't forget, Radcliffe has won a world halfmarathon title in the teeth of a Portuguese summer.

Or what about worries over her upand-down year? True, she had a hernia operation and a hamstring problem that kept her out of action earlier in the year, but her two track races at 5,000 metres and 10,000m in June were fairly dazzling.

Then there's the idea that she and the Team Radcliffe camp have become so weighed down by carrying a nation's hopes that, with their vows of public silence and news blackouts, they are actually putting too much pressure on themselves.

Well, says Storey, she seems remarkably relaxed in the Village, with her husband and coach Gary Lough, who's staying just outside in a GB team lodge, able to pop in every day to see her, and with Ger Hartmann, her Irish physio with the miraculous healing hands, on site.

Might the hustle of life in the village seem like an unsettling last port of call for someone who has been doing her own tranquil thing for so long at first, her Pyrenean altitude training base at Font Romeu and then down on the Spanish plains near Seville? "I wouldn't worry about that. She's more mentally robust than she's ever been," responds Storey.

So, no excuses then. It's her race to lose and I can hardly recall such an overwhelming tide of goodwill towards one athlete's quest. Maybe it is because in this drugs-infested era, she is somehow still perceived as a beacon of hope but it is not just from Britain that the best wishes come.

They even come from the greatest of them all. Tonight, Haile Gebrselassie will run his last track race in the 10,000m before switching his sights to a career in the marathon.

Although he won't win this evening, as he's been struggling with injury and has long since been surpassed by his amazing young compatriot Kenenisa Bekele, his Olympic legend is already sealed with two titles. Now he thinks it's time for Radcliffe to get her just desserts too.

"The Olympics won't be the end for her; she will win and it will be the passage to something else even better," Gebrselassie told me.

"To me, she is already the best woman athlete of all time, anyway. She can use different tactics now, she doesn't just go from the gun and, for me, she is a complete runner. Outstanding. Perfect.

"I am concerned about the future of our sport. Athletics has to do something to promote itself better and bigger because football is becoming very dominating and Paula makes a difference.

"She sets the example for everyone. Paula is not just a role model for people who want to start running; she is even an inspiration to me.

"I see her as a role model because I'm thinking of being able to run a marathon like her."

When you are an inspiration to the best there ever was, you must be doing something right.

In Radcliffe's case, she seems to do everything right these days. If she loses, you can be certain that it won't be through a stone being left unturned. Like Lance Armstrong cycling up L'Alpe d'Huez months before the Tour de France, Radcliffe has run on the course and knows its every unlovely inch, flanked as it is by major roads not quaint historical sites.

Yet what will she feel when she lines up in Marathon on Sunday at 6pm here with temperatures still in the early 30s?

Storey knows how he felt when he stood in the same spot alongside her the other day.

"You stand there and the last thing you think of is running," he said. "You just want someone to point you to the nearest bar immediately."

Ahead, for the first five kilometres towards the tomb of the marathon warriors at the six kilometres mark, lies a fairly flat stretch that could be absolutely key to the entire race. Too fast and Radcliffe could pay dearly. Too conservative and the Japanese team for one, who boast a brilliant workaholic answer to Radcliffe in Mizuki Noguchi, believe their woman can hold on to the Briton and pressurise her in the hills.

"But you can't win it in that opening stretch, you can only lose it," said Storey.

From 10km to 20km, there are a few undulations then the climbs are difficult and unrelenting for at least another 12km stretch, including one 500m section that rises steeply by more than 200ft.

"There's no respite," Bill Adcocks, the Coventrian who has held the course record for 35 years, has said. "Then, when you've got to the top you've got the last six miles downhill-but if you've had to work so hard that you're knackered, it's no advantage."

Then, for the modern Olympian, there is one last trial to endure. What if Radcliffe comes into this ancient, narrow stadium neck and neck with a rival?

"The bends are like hairpins, they're so tight," said Storey. "It could be farcical if it came down to a sprint finish there. We just have to hope she already has it won before then."

Absolutely. Could a nation, which is going to feel as if it is running every step of the way with her, bear another of those old track championship near-misses when she was cast as the eternal bridesmaid? Not any more, surely.

This has to be the hour when Radcliffe gets wedded to Greek legend.