Heartbreaking
Aug. 22nd, 2004 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbI wonder how many sports fans in Britain and around the world feel sad almost to tears after seeing what happened in Athens in the last couple of hours. Let's make no bones about it: Paula Radcliffe has been trashed, beaten as convincingly as she has been beating all opponents for two years - since her sensational first marathon in London. Let us make no excuses for her; she would not make any for herself, anyway. And I will add that, beloved though she may be among the sports public, one wonders whether her popularity extended to the dressing room. Paula has always run to be the first, run for herself; and this means running against everyone else, doing nothing to help others - like for instance taking turns to be at the front. On the famous occasion at Sydney when she led the 10,000mt from beginning to end, only to be overtaken by all three Ethiopians in the last few hundred metres and end up out of the medals, one would imagine that the Ethiopians felt far less compunction about humiliating her in that she had done nothing at all to share the pain of running. Her whole style is based on almost literally grinding her opponents into dust. She has a reason for it, since she famously has no kick and cannot outspeed opponents at the end of a race; but it is not a style to endear her to competitors.
But to the lovers of sport for its own sake, Paula is everything an athlete and a woman should be. She is almost tangibly upright, has a personal presence of melting sweetness - her voice is remarkable, it almost has a smile in it - never spares herself, runs as we would like to see people run. The tactical devices and watching-each-other that are the life and blood of most distance running are not things that a spectator appreciates; the sight of a lot of athletes bunched together, moving almost in step, taking turns to take the lead and keeping the time low until the final sprint, is not something I for one find appealing, however much skill there may be in it. We love courage and commitment: and Paula had nothing else. And I have to say that, while on the one hand it was agonizing and almost intolerably humiliating to see her with her head in her long arms, crying her heart out on an anonymous Athens roadside, on the other hand it seems almost typical of her touchingly open, heart-on-sleeve character. It is for things like this that nobody who has ever followed her career can bring him/herself to believe that she would ever dope or cheat.
Some TV commentator spoke of Paula "considering her future" - an euphemism for retiring. My immediate reaction was that I could have throttled him. Even after thinking about it for two hours, I hope to God she never even thinks about it. If I were her, what I would do would be to go straight back into training, enter all the races I have to, work in the most unfavourable conditions, try harder than ever to win, and do everything in my power to make sure that, by the time Beijing 2008 rolls around, I stand a better chance. Paula is not only a lovely human being, she is - along with Caroline Kluft - the finest female athlete currently in activity. She deserves better than to be counted as an Olympic almost-was.
But to the lovers of sport for its own sake, Paula is everything an athlete and a woman should be. She is almost tangibly upright, has a personal presence of melting sweetness - her voice is remarkable, it almost has a smile in it - never spares herself, runs as we would like to see people run. The tactical devices and watching-each-other that are the life and blood of most distance running are not things that a spectator appreciates; the sight of a lot of athletes bunched together, moving almost in step, taking turns to take the lead and keeping the time low until the final sprint, is not something I for one find appealing, however much skill there may be in it. We love courage and commitment: and Paula had nothing else. And I have to say that, while on the one hand it was agonizing and almost intolerably humiliating to see her with her head in her long arms, crying her heart out on an anonymous Athens roadside, on the other hand it seems almost typical of her touchingly open, heart-on-sleeve character. It is for things like this that nobody who has ever followed her career can bring him/herself to believe that she would ever dope or cheat.
Some TV commentator spoke of Paula "considering her future" - an euphemism for retiring. My immediate reaction was that I could have throttled him. Even after thinking about it for two hours, I hope to God she never even thinks about it. If I were her, what I would do would be to go straight back into training, enter all the races I have to, work in the most unfavourable conditions, try harder than ever to win, and do everything in my power to make sure that, by the time Beijing 2008 rolls around, I stand a better chance. Paula is not only a lovely human being, she is - along with Caroline Kluft - the finest female athlete currently in activity. She deserves better than to be counted as an Olympic almost-was.
