Radcliffe in revolt

New goals: Radcliffe has motherhood and more medals on the agenda
14 April 2012
In a no-holds-barred interview, golden girl Paula Radcliffe hits out at the state of British athletics

Every so often, Paula Radcliffe stops in mid-conversation, breaks into a beaming smile and explains that she has just felt a kick inside.

Five months pregnant and five and a half kilos heavier, Britain's most driven — and most successful — athlete has never appeared happier or more relaxed. Impending motherhood has even persuaded the workaholic to scale back her lifestyle.

"My training's down to 60 per cent," she admitted. "And, whereas before I'd finish a session as fast as possible, now I'm checking my heart monitor and if I feel the baby kick after, say, eight repetitions when I'm planning to do 10, I stop immediately."

Any illusions, however, that Radcliffe, at 32, is in danger of going soft — on herself or others — are wide of the mark.

As she talked last week in a London hotel about what the future holds for her as both a mother and an athlete, the pathetic figure seen crying on a street in Athens as her Olympic dream was shattered when she dropped out of the marathon two years ago seemed to belong to a different lifetime.

But the pain and despair of that experience have driven Radcliffe to set new goals. Beijing in two years' time is where she intends to put the record straight.

"I've achieved most things in my sport but it's not happened for me at the Olympics and what happened to me in Athens makes me determined to produce my best in 2008," she admitted. "If I try my best and don't win, I'll have to accept it, but it will be very hard to do so. I know it's the same for other athletes like Colin Jackson, who were the best in the world but never won Olympic gold. I want to make sure I get it right."

Athens, and the criticism her performance there received, changed her, as she readily admits. "What people say about me doesn't bother me any more. I've learned to let it go," she said. "More importantly, I've kept all that pain and misery and I use it every time I go training. It fires me up. It inspires me. It gets me angry. I use it as a fuel I've never been able to use before. And it will be a key in my drive to win gold in Beijing."

Although she does not say it, that anger may also be a factor in how she now judges others.

Radcliffe has never fought shy of taking a stand against those athletes who have tainted her sport by their reliance on drugs. But now she has acquired the confidence and standing that allows her to take on the man who, as the performance director of UK Athletics is, effectively, her boss.

Dave Collins publicly saddled Radcliffe with the burden of being Britain's only hope for a gold medal in Beijing. It is an imposition that Radcliffe resents, not for herself but on behalf of all those other athletes whose chances have, effectively, been written off.

"I don't feel any more pressure because the pressure I place on myself far outweighs anything else," she said. "But I do find it disrespectful to all our other athletes to single me out, as Dave Collins did.

"It's also unfair on those who are coming through and believe they can win a medal in two years' time. We have a number of young athletes — Beccy Lyne, Mo Farah, Nathan Douglas, Jessica Ennis, Sam Ellis and others — who could challenge and it can't be right to dismiss their chances now."

But this is not the only cause of her displeasure with Collins. What has rankled Radcliffe far more is her boss's bizarre policy of awarding Britain's athletes 'marks out of 10' and going public with that information.

"I have to say that I absolutely hate it," said Radcliffe. "It's one thing to discuss performances with an athlete, it's quite another to put it out in front of the media and announce this is how we will grade you. You need to have an understanding of each individual case. You must be aware that while some athletes need a kick up the backside others require an arm around the shoulder."

Radcliffe is not blind, however, to Britain's failure to convert promise into success at the championships that matter, the sorry medal haul at last month's European Championships being the latest pitiful example.

"There are more countries and stiffer competition now than in the Eighties," she argued, "but we still should have performed much better than we did at Gothenburg. We have the talent and the facilities but I question whether we have the hunger. It can't be created. It comes from within. We don't have enough of it. Then there's the system. Elite athletes don't get elite support.

"Look at the world-class 400 metres runners this country has lost to injury. You need to know that the sport is there for you. That means that if you are injured on Boxing Day you can fly immediately to Germany, the United States or wherever the best specialist is for instant treatment. We have short careers and British athletes need to get over injuries quicker than they do."

Radcliffe also points an accusing finger at the way British athletics was run in the Eighties and early Nineties.

"We have outstanding young talent coming up but we don't have athletes in their late 20s winning major championships," she said. "We've lost a whole generation and that is hitting us hard."

She is scathing at the complacency that lies behind such a waste. "When it was going well we sat back and told ourselves 'We've got Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell and Colin Jackson, Steve Backley and Jonathan Edwards'," she said.

"We convinced ourselves that everything was looking good and we had nothing to worry about. The truth is that this is exactly when we should have been working to produce the next generation inspired by our medallists."

Mentioning Christie provokes Radcliffe to reiterate her opposition to the former Olympic 100 metres champion becoming an official 'mentor' to Britain's future athletic stars, despite his career on the track being tainted by a drugs test scandal.

Collins claimed last week that Christie will be acting as a coach rather than a mentor but that explanation fails to convince Radcliffe. "It's nothing personal," she said, willing to speak out against a man whose force of personality provokes others to bite their lip.

"It's just that you can't put someone who has failed a drug test in charge of youngsters. He's in no position to be a mentor. There must be better people to have than one who's been exposed as a drugs cheat. I'd say the same about Dwain Chambers, too, if he ever became a mentor."

Her outrage is not confined to British sprinters, either. The recent ban on American sprinter Justin Gatlin, after drugs tests revealed illegal levels of testosterone, has shocked and angered her.

"The worst thing about Gatlin is that it's not like we're talking about someone that you have no trust in," she said. "I thought he was a nice, honest person who inspired kids to take up the sport. To me, his crime is simple. It's fraud. But the deterrents are nowhere near enough, especially in America where track and field isn't huge."

Gatlin, the current Olympic and world 100m champion, has agreed to become a whistle-blower in an attempt to reduce the eight-year ban he has received following his second drugs offence.

Radcliffe questions the deal and urges sanctions against Gatlin's coach, Trevor Graham, who has now had 11 of his athletes failing drugs tests. "Gatlin hasn't shown that he possesses a strong, moral ethic to do the right thing before, so why will he now?" she said. "He owed it to track and field not to cheat in the first place.

"Now he owes it to me and my sport to reveal everything he knows and that includes information on coaches. The guilty coaches need equally big sanctions, too."

She acknowledges, though, that the system designed to catch the cheats needs improving. "The world has no faith in the testing procedures," she said. "That is why I'm working with the Athletes Commission in discussions with the IAAF to introduce blood passports where athletes' blood can be monitored from a junior stage onwards."

As she speaks, Radcliffe plays absent-mindedly with the titanium necklace she is sponsored by Phiten to wear. What with motherhood and the state of British athletics to contend with, you would have thought she had enough on her plate.

But already she is looking beyond Beijing, to the prospect of the 2012 Olympics in London.

"If I'm still world-class, then I'll want to run at an Olympic Games in my home country," she said. "I won't be there just to jog around. I'll be 38 but I should still be fine. Winning the London Marathon is incredible enough but you can multiply the atmosphere a hundred-fold when it comes to the Olympics in London."

Maybe, then, even the most vehement critics of her performance in Athens will have forgiven her. Certainly, ever since that infamous race she has done all that could be asked of her, winning the 2004 New York marathon as well as the London and world championship marathons last year.

"Athens was a horrible experience but it has made me stronger," she insisted. "At the time it felt like meltdown. I was so scared. I kept wondering 'What the hell's wrong with me? Why can't I run in a straight line? Why won't my legs keep going?' I just ground to a halt.

"Later I discovered it was a reaction to anti-inflammatories but at the time I asked myself 'Is that it? Have I just lost it?' Then came a kind of criticism I'd never experienced before. People felt let down and went for me. I made out it didn't bother me but deep inside it hurt."

Becoming a mother will represent another stage in her public rehabilitation. "January 6 is the date," she announced. "Twelfth night. It's good because it means the birthday will remind me each year to take the Christmas decorations down."

As if Radcliffe, always meticulous in her preparation, was ever likely to forget.

FOR more information on Phiten products, go to www.phiten.co.uk

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in