Paula Radcliffe: A supreme athlete displaying true grit

Paula Radcliffe won the London Marathon in 2003 in a scarcely believable world-record time of two hours, 15 minutes, 25 seconds. I had to believe it, because I was standing there at the time. If you look at old photos of her crossing the line, one of the hands holding the finishing tape belonged to me. By then, I was a marathon veteran myself. I’d run the distance in 2001, to help raise money for my charities, in a time that was not a world record — four hours 20 minutes, if anyone needs to know.

So I knew something about the marathon at the Athens Olympics, where Paula was the favourite and widely perceived as Britain’s greatest opportunity for an athletics medal.

But that, as it transpired, was crazy. How can someone from a country so obsessed by the weather have been so heedless of its potential effect? In homage to the founding of the ancient Olympics, the marathon was beginning at Marathon, and it so happened that I was travelling down that very road on the morning of the race.

It was the middle Sunday of the Games and I’d been out at the rowing lake, my first experience of commentating on an Olympics instead of competing in them. We were driving along in a comfortably air-conditioned car but the heat was so intense outside the windscreen it was almost tangible.

You could see it shimmering off the tarmac. It was so hot the road looked as though it was melting, and I pitied those poor girls having to run in such conditions. More to the point, I pitied the pale-skinned blonde, who would be running for Britain in dangerous heat, alien to her preferred conditions. She was at such a distinct disadvantage and it was completely out of her control. So the unfolding of the trauma that day in Athens was partially not her fault. With the sun burning down and the leaders of the race now beyond her reach, she pulled out of the marathon at the 22-mile mark, sitting, sobbing, on the kerb at the side of the road until she was comforted by old friends and retrieved by race officials.

Her devastation was portrayed in two ways by the British media. They love this type of thing. Failure is one of the great staples of the press. Some offered sympathy, others accused her of quitting and really turned the knife. Sometimes I think sport is hard enough as it is, without those who comment on it then crucifying the victims. I speak as one who has had a good ride from the British media but then I didn’t fail at the Olympics.