Monday, August 23, 2004

NEVER MIND SNICKERS, GIVE ME A MARATHON BAR

Yep, that bloody Marathon and the great British failure. The BBC (warning: don't click on the message boards offering "support" for Paula; could induce vomitting):

A tearful Paula Radcliffe has revealed she has no idea what went wrong in her failed bid for Olympic marathon gold.

"You go through bad stages in a marathon, but never as bad as that," she said.

"I've never before not been able to finish and I'm desperately trying to find a reason for what happened.

The Washington Post thinks it has a clue to the reason:

...character was needed given the conditions, with temperatures well above 90 degrees at the start. Sixteen runners failed to finish. Paula Radcliffe of Britain, the world record holder in the women's marathon, was running in third place with less than five miles to go. But to the great disappointment of hundreds of British fans watching on a giant television in the stadium -- not to mention those lining the last few miles of the course clutching Union Jacks -- Radcliffe stopped running, bent to clutch her knees, tried to start again, and finally sat down, tears rolling down her cheeks. She did not finish.

I make no comment on character. It was a shame. But, it made compulsive viewing and ranks as one of the best British sporting catastrophes of all time just behind the "Hand of God".

Oh, and congratulations to Mizuki Noguchi, a very good Marathon runner, who coped with the conditions and ran a very intelligent race beating the best runners in the world. Apparently there were other highly dedicated and motivated runners in the field.

:: Posted by pete @ 12:02