The 'new Paula' is hit by Beijing snub

Rising star: Steph Twell wins the 1500 metres final at the world junior championships but still has to sweat on her Olympic place

Ian Chadband|Chief Sports Correspondent

13 April 2012

It is somewhat ironic that while Britain's athletics selectors are still bending over backwards to give the old Paula Radcliffe every possible chance to run at the Olympic Games even though her chances look increasingly bereft, they do not appear to be ready quite yet to invest the same trust and faith in the teenager who has been touted as the new Paula.

Steph Twell is young, gifted and already a junior champion of the world, just as Radcliffe was as a kid. She is modest, pleasant and as obsessively determined about her running as Paula always has been. Yet while she may at 18 be just about the most exciting track talent in British athletics, having just come home to Twickenham from Poland as the first UK girl to win a middle distance race, the 1500 metres, at the world junior championships, selectors are still making her sweat on her Olympics place.

How short-sighted. The Beijing Games, everyone in British athletics is agreed, needs to be a testing ground for the best young talent in the sport, a chance for them to experience the unique Olympic arena so as to stand them in the best possible stead for when the 2012 circus comes crashing onto their doorstep.

It is why yesterday the most striking absence in the 52-strong British team wasn't that of Dwain Chambers, otherwise engaged in matters of law, but of two teenage London-based athletes, Twell and Perri Shakes-Drayton, who both lit up the sport on trials weekend and who both have the shining ability to be stars at the Games in their backyard.

It should be a no brainer that Twell and Shakes-Drayton, the brilliant 19-year-old winner of the national 400m crown at Birmingham on Saturday, be granted the priceless education which only Beijing can offer but, partly hamstrung by their own rulebook and partly by their refusal to go for the bold yet obvious option, UK Athletics may four years hence rue the fact that the pair could end up watching the whole shebang on TV.

Shakes-Drayton, the youngster from Bow who has been getting advice from former Olympic one-lap hurdles champ Sally Gunnell, was today having to jet off to Switzerland for a meeting in Lucerne where tomorrow night she will bid to make her last attempt before Saturday's deadline to gain the 'A' qualifying time of 55.60 seconds which would secure her place in Beijing.

It feels deflating that Shakes-Drayton, fresh from convincingly defeating the long-time No1 Natasha Danvers to win the trial, should have to be the one who was overlooked. Yet she only has the 'B' standard time, while Danvers has the 'A' mark, so UK Athletics were obliged to select a 30-year-old who recently finished seventh in the European Cup at the expense of the coming woman.

With Twell, though, it was different. Selectors could have rewarded her rare global success in Bydzgosz but instead have now pitted the youngster in a three-way fight with 30-year-old Susan Scott and 21-year-old Hannah England for the two remaining places in the 1500m.

Why bother? It will be the usual post-trials fudge fought out between tired athletes coming off a major race and will prove nothing. Scott and England will traipse halfway across Europe tomorrow to race each other in Lucerne while Twell, who only returned from Poland yesterday, must rely on being offered a last-gasp chance to run in the Paris Golden League 1500m on Friday to stake her claim.

Yet why do any of them need to be put through this? Even taking into account that all three have decent claims on the two places alongside trials winner, Lisa Dobriskey, surely Twell's extraordinary promise - she was capable of winning medals at 1500m, 3,000m or 5,000m in Bydzgosz - must tip the balance?

Not according to Dave Collins, the UK Athletics performance director who insists: "It won't be criminal if Steph doesn't go. I'd expect if athletes want to go to the Olympics that they make a case for running in those Olympics. We have some very tough decisions and in the 1500m we are going to have one very disappointed lady."

If that disappointed lady turns out to be Twell come Saturday, then it is fortunate that the St Mary's College student is as level-headed as her coach Mick Woods.

"If Steph gets to go to Beijing, she'll relish the opportunity but if she doesn't she'll remain philosophical," he said.

"She knows her chance will come and when it does, she knows she'll take it."

At least in the 52-strong team - it may well be 60-something in the final reckoning - the dearth of obvious medal hopes is offset by the presence of other young talent which should make its boldest mark in 2012, like high jumper Tom Parsons, 24, long jumper Greg Rutherford, just 21, and one-lap runner Martyn Rooney, 21.

Yet it would be a crying shame if Twell is not with them. This, remember, is the girl who says of athletics: "I live it, breathe it, dream it. It's a whole life package." See what we mean about her being Paula mark two?

MORE ABOUT

Athletics, Track And Field

The 'new Paula' is hit by Beijing snub

Read More