Paula Radcliffe wins Great South Run

on October 28, 2008 by Administrator

Paula Radcliffe has enjoyed an impressive victory in the Great South Run in Portsmouth, thrashing rivals including Augusto, Mukunzi, Komu, Johnson and Daunay.

The athlete managed to finish the 10-mile race in just 51 minutes and 11 seconds, setting a new record in the process. Jill Boltz held the previous national record but Radcliffe managed to beat it by 30 seconds.

Perhaps more impressively, the athlete admitted that she chose to run at a slower pace than she was capable of in an attempt to save energy before the New York Marathon next weekend. Furthermore, the weather conditions in Portsmouth were not at all ideal, with strong winds and rain impacting upon the performance of the athletes.

For Radcliffe to have smashed the previous record, set 17 years ago, by such an impressive margin is therefore even more of an achievement given the slow pace and the adverse conditions.

Some sports journalists have stated that the athlete has not looked this good since she won the world marathon title in 2005 in Helsinki. Radcliffe won Britain's only gold medal at the Helsinki World Championships and managed to set a championship record time of 2 hours, 20 minutes and 57 seconds.

The Great South Run was her first race since her disappointing performance at the Olympic Games in Beijing. Radcliffe's preparations for the Beijing event were hampered by a stress fracture to her hip sustained in May of this year as well as a frustrating succession of calf injuries.

However, she has revealed that she suffered no detrimental psychological effects from the relative failure of the Olympics. Rather, the only