Posted: October 22, 2005

Athletics: Radcliffe To Return To London Marathon

From David Monti

© 2005 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

The top 2005 fall marathons have not yet concluded, but race organizers for the Flora London Marathon have already announced that marathon world champion and world record holder Paula Radcliffe will compete there next April.

"This is great news and a real bonus for London to have Paula confirmed this early, and we must now decide whether to run the race in women's only or mixed race conditions," said race director David Bedford in a press release.

Radcliffe, 31, has won the London Marathon three times, in 2002 (in her début at the distance, 2:18:56), in 2003 (setting the current mixed-gender world record, 2:15:25) and in 2005 (setting the current women's-only world record, 2:17:42).

London pioneered the early start for women in large commercial marathons which allowed women to run without interference from men. But in 2003, Bedford took the unusual step of allowing male pacers to run in the all-women's race, while the elite men ran in a different start some 45 minutes later. Whether the pacers who ran with Radcliffe, Samson Loywapet and Christopher Kandie of Kenya, had any influence on her sparkling 2:15:25 finish time is debatable. They ran mostly off to the side and Kandie didn't finish. However, Bedford decided to return to only allowing female pacemakers the following year (Radcliffe didn't run), and fielded only women's pacemakers in 2005. Radcliffe left all of them behind after the 10 km mark and ran completely alone, save the company of the television motorcycle, to the finish line.

Radcliffe will not contest a fall marathon this year after winning the marathn gold medal at the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki last August. She won the ING New York City Marathon last November, but chose not to defend her title and instead concentrate on running shorter races. She is scheduled to run the Seven Hills Run in Nijmegen, Netherlands, on Nov. 20 where she has an opportinity to break the 15-K world record. She is also scheduled to run in the Chiba Ekiden later that month. She won a 10-K race in London last Sunday.

The 2006 Flora London Marathon will take place on Sunday, April 23. For the first time in several years, it will not take place the same weekend as the BAA Boston Marathon, which will be the Monday before (April 17).