To witness will power in its purest form, nothing could beat Paula Radcliffe winning the New York marathon.
Posh Spice, Angelina Jolie, Liz Hurley, eat your hearts out. Sure you can slim yourselves into a pair of skinny jeans hours after giving birth, but can you then run a marathon? As for winning it, Posh is more likely to release a good record, Liz is more likely to make a decent movie, and Angelina is more likely to stop adopting the world's children.
To witness will power in its purest form, nothing could beat Paula Radcliffe winning the New York marathon. Head bobbing backwards and forwards, eyes rolling wildly, she runs like a chicken on stilts. There is nothing graceful about her, nothing stylish, and yet Radcliffe is the most heroic of British athletes — the personification of determination.
New York was classic Radcliffe. Teeth gritted, repeating the mantra "I love you Isla, I love you Isla," to get herself home, she won the first marathon she has run in over two years. After finally overcoming her great rival Gete Wami in Central Park she had everything she desired in her grasp — covered in the victorious union flag, nine-month-old Isla on one arm, husband and coach Gary on the other, you'd have to be made of stone not to be moved.
Radcliffe has spent her life proving people wrong — in New York on Sunday, in the world championships in Helsinki, in New York three years ago after the disaster of the Athens Olympics. Just as often she's proven us wrong when we expected her to win — failing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, in Sydney in 2000 and in Athens when she simply stopped running, and was left weeping on the curb with three miles to go.
This time she came back desperate to prove she could still be a winner as a mother. It was a wonderful achievement in New York, but not unprecedented. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that women athletes, particularly distance runners, peak after giving birth.
Scotland's Liz McColgan was running less than a fortnight after the birth of daughter Eilish in 1990 while she still had her stitches in — she went on to claim the world 10,000M title and won several marathons. This year Jana Rawlinson won the 400M hurdles gold at the world championships just eight months after giving birth.
The Norwegian Ingrid Kristiansen only discovered she was pregnant in her fifth month when tested to investigate why she had just run a marathon so slowly — two hours 33 minutes. Seven months after the birth of her son Gaute she set a new world record.
Almost 20 years ago Adrianne Blue wrote a book called Faster, Higher, Further about why so many athletes achieved more after giving birth. Any number of theories were posited — women feel more contented; having endured labour (27 hours in Radcliffe's case) women could endure any pain; a pelvis widened by childbirth makes the running stride more efficient; pregnancy forces the lungs and heart to become stronger to cope with the extra weight. Some athletes, particularly in the old eastern bloc, began to believe that pregnancy was the secret of success. In 1986, the US runner Mary Decker Slaney was asked if she had got pregnant to improve her running. Yes, she said, that was one of the reasons. Childbirth, the great natural stimulant — who needs steroids when you can have sprogs?
Less fashionable
Today, the theory is less fashionable, and giving birth is thought to be more likely to hamper than help your career. Radcliffe, now 33, reckoned that people had written her off after she had a baby. On Sunday, she said: "This will show the people who thought motherhood would end my career."
Again, classic Radcliffe. She has never pleaded for our affection. She has never prettified the process; has always told it and shown it as it is. That's the thing I love about her — her openness; whether it's the devastation of defeat or the tensions in her relationship with Gary (remember when he screamed at her at the end of the 10,000M for failing to follow his plan in the 2001 world championships?). This is what makes her such an honest inspiration. Now there's only one thing left to do. Grit your teeth, chant "I love you Isla" for a couple of hours and win an Olympic gold medal in Beijing.
