Posted: April 17, 2005

Athletics: Radcliffe Clobbers Clock At London

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

LONDON (17-Apr) -- It wasn't much of a race, but oh what a run.

Paula Radcliffe demonstrated her mastery of the marathon distance once again today, winning for the third time here in a new women's only world record of 2:17:42 (unofficial). The woman from Loughborough surpassed her own time set here in 2002, and in absolute terms, ran the third fastest marathon ever by a women. She now owns the top-3 times in history and four of the top-5.

"I came into this race with no worries about my preparations," Radcliffe told the BBC after the race.

She faced no serious challengers --besides the clock-- after the opening miles when she was joined for a time by defending champion Margaret Okayo, last year's runner-up in New York, Susan Chepkemei, and two pacemakers, Leah Malot and Restituta Joseph. But when she hit the 10 km mark in 32:18, Radcliffe was already alone. She began to pound out the miles with remarkable consistency beginning with mile 7: 5:16, 5:12, 5:15, 5:13, 5:14 and so on.

The only scare came early in the 22nd mile when she suddenly pulled to the left side of the road and squatted down, perhaps trying to releive a cramp. She bounced up again and resumed running, only losing about 10 seconds. She still covered that mile in 5:23.

Always a perfectionist, Radcliffe still saw some room for improvement. "Obviously, I would have like to run a PB," she also told the BBC, saying before, "I think it was about winning for me, really."

Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania passed Okayo in the 14th mile to take command of second place, and held on to set a personal best of 2:22:50 (unofficial). Chepkemei also passed Okayo to take third, with Okayo finishing fourth.

 1. Paula Radcliffe, GBR, 2:17:42*
 2. Constantina Dita, ROM, 2:22:50
 3. Susan Chepkemei, KEN, 2:24:00
 4. Margaret Okayo, KEN, 2:25:21
 

*World record, women's only race (pending validation); previous 2:18:56, Radcliffe, London, 2002