IT ALL ENDS IN TEARS FOR RADCLIFFE

From Frank Malley, PA Chief Sports Writer, Athens

The frazzling heat of an early Greek evening took its inevitable toll.

But you couldn't help feeling that much more punishing for Paula Radcliffe was the oppressive expectation of a public desperate for someone, anyone, to lift the fortunes of British athletics.

In the end, as it so often does, it all ended in tears, Radcliffe's tears, as she pulled up overcome by exhaustion seven kilometres from the end of the Olympic marathon in which she was odds-on favourite to take gold.

She bent down hands on knees and gulped in a huge lungful of air before trying to jog on. No more than 50 metres later she broke down again, the pain written in her contorted grimace.

And then she surrendered to the inevitable, slumping ungainly to the ground, and rarely has the loneliness of the long distance runner seemed so apt.

There's no getting away from it. It was a desperately disappointing end to what we hoped would have been one of the most inspiring Olympic stories.

That's why the British fans had turned up in their hundreds hoping to celebrate a day of destiny amid the splendour of the Panithanaiko Stadium, home to the first Games of the modern Olympics back in 1896 and a monument to man's sporting dreams.

They had read their history books which told the story of ancient courier Pheidippides, who ran from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC to inform the local elders that the Greeks had just beaten the Persians in battle.

Twenty five centuries later the script was written for Radcliffe to follow in his footsteps, symbolically if not literally.

The message this time was supposed to herald Radcliffe's coronation as one of the greatest women's marathon runners who ever lived.

The party was in place.

Perhaps she underestimated the course with its rolling hills. Perhaps the hernia operation she had last March plus the viruses and calf problems she has suffered this year had an effect.

Whatever, the fans had waited anxiously and expectantly for their heroine to enter the giant concrete horseshoe of a stadium.

They had parked themselves in two corners of the shadeless stands on a Greek evening on which you could have poached an egg.

They didn't seem to care as they waved their `Radcliffe on a Rampage' and 'We love you Paula' banners and broke out into mini-chants of `Paula...Paula' at every mention of Radcliffe's position, in between dancing to a string of hits from the seventies.

There was no doubt in their minds just as there has never been any real secret to Radcliffe's tactics. She runs from the front. She stays there, she presses, she presses some more and gradually the rest fall away.

That was the theory and up until now that had worked to perfection, so much so that after only three marathons she had set a world record of 2:15.25, three minutes faster than any other woman had run.

But running up the inclines of Athens in such extreme conditions is not like cantering around London's flat docklands on a crisp morning in spring.

To give an example of the strength-sapping nature of the heat Radcliffe went through the 10km mark in 34 minutes and 25 minutes. When she set her world record at the London marathon last year she covered the same distance in 29.47.

Then, however, she was all alone, having already burned away the opposition. This time she was surrounded by a tight but tenacious group, including the dangerous triumvirate of Japanese headed by eventual winner Mizuki Noguchi.

By the half-way mark the group was down to eight. Then seven.

Then came Radcliffe's first real test. At 25km Noguchi and Ethiopia's Elfenesh Alemu opened a gap and the first frisson of anxiety rippled through the crowd.

First five metres, then 10. Within minutes it had stretched to the length of a football field.

The Radcliffe grimace told the story. The nodding gait began to falter. She lapsed to a minute behind the leader but even then when she stopped it was a shock.

The Union Jacks hung limply, the sympathetic chanting stopped, the cruellest race in athletics had claimed another victim. And never has a party gone flat so quickly.

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