Tulu: Paula may have overdone it

13 April 2012

Paula Radcliffe may have made a crucial error in competing in the World Cross-Country Championships just 22 days before the London Marathon, according to her chief rival.

Derartu Tulu, the Olympic 10,000 metres champion and the 13-8 favourite for Sunday's race with bookmakers William Hill, believes inexperience may have prompted the Bedford runner to over-stretch herself.

Radcliffe successfully defended her World Cross-Country title in Dublin last month, her last competitive outing before making her debut at the 26.2 mile distance this weekend. William Hill has her as 11-4 second favourite.

"My opinion is that it would be ill-advised to do both events," said Tulu. "It's just my own view. I could be right or wrong. My own move from cross-country to marathon was successful. I don't know how successful it will be for Paula.

"Since the Sydney Olympics, I have only trained to improve endurance, not speed. It was hard to maintain the necessary training schedule when I made the switch up from 10,000m. The strain was seen in the duration and pressure of my training. When I did my first marathon I set a target of 2hr 30min for myself, and I was comfortably up on that, so I was encouraged that I could take it in my stride.''

According to her interpreter, the Ethiopian described crosscountry as "not my cup of tea", claiming she had never taken it seriously on account of lacking the necessary speed. A touch disingenuous, perhaps - she won the world title in 1997 and 2000.

Tulu must be hoping her judgment about Radcliffe is right. In their last meeting earlier this year the Briton demolished Tulu to win an important 10k road race in Puerto Rico, finishing three minutes ahead of her and only four seconds outside Liz McColgan's long-standing world best.

Since then Tulu has concentrated more strongly than ever on endurance work. But she insisted Radcliffe is not especially on her mind ahead of the race. "I am not paying any attention to my rivals," she said. "I am concentrating only on my own time."

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the race organisers were primed for a last-minute alteration of the course if the death of the Queen Mother had made it necessary.

Had the race date fallen just before the funeral instead of just after it, then preparations for the funeral would have forced the shifting of the finish line from The Mall back to its original site on Westminster Bridge.

In turn that would have caused a knock-on effect, leaving the course short of the statutory distance. In that case, another loop around a mile long would have been added to the Wapping section of the route.

In fact, these plans have been in place for many years, as part of a contingency operation to take into account any such occasion which might by chance fall within the race schedule. This is only sensible with an event on the scale of the London race.

After all, the Queen Mother was already an octogenarian when the capital's marathon was first run 21 years ago. Even then the possibility of her death was planned for.

"As it is, some confusion has been caused by the black ribbons we have been distributing to all runners to wear during the race in the Queen Mother's memory," said a spokesman.

"Some runners have confused the ribbons with the microchip which they must wear in their shoe to verify their time. They have attempted to attach the ribbon to a shoe, and then been perplexed by the flimsiness of this supposed timing device."

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