unclebuck

A thought just occured to me. What with all the hysterics of denial among the masses over her quitting the marathon when it became clear she could not win a medal.

The public's reaction reminds me of the outpouring of phoney grief we were subjected to when the Royal Bike was wiped out in a drunken car crash. Can anyone else see the similarity?

UB

Dunk

iTrader: (1)

Both were left wrecked and in pieces on the side of the road ?

D

lightning101

"Paula Radcliffe "Queen of Hearts" - ATE MY HAMPSTER"


edited

lightning101

Remember the Tacky Diana Dolls that came out.


Wonder if there will be a bobbing head Radcliffe Doll for the back shalf of your car.

unclebuck

And periodically bursts into tears for no reason

RichWalk

UB, an evening out with you must be like the first rays of sunshine on a spring morning

lightning101

Would that be a 95 deg F spring morning in the humid streets of Athens then ?

Jerome

She's given up again:

Eight laps to go: Radcliffe has gone. She steps over the curb into the infield, and her Olympics are over.

From here

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

UB do you get a kick from taking the **** out of people who really do try, could you run a 25 mile marathron or attpt 10,000 metres.........don't think so, give the girl a break for christ sake.
Colin

lightning101

Neither can she obviously.

MooseRacer

Scoob99 - UB's just very British, don't mind him

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

So am I, so thats why I'm backing her all the way, she is 30 years old she will back bigger and better
Colin

unclebuck

If you have seen my other posts on this subject you will know my opinion. Clearly, as others have stated it is not a requirement to have run a marathon in order to be entitled to an opinion any more than it is to be an F1 driver to comment on F1 racing.

UB

gadget daz

Nice words m8, truly nice words

I was born and bread in this country and proud of being english

are you ??

Gadget Daz (english and proud).............english not british

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

Nice one Daz!!!!!!!!!!!!

unclebuck

Sadly, it's people like the two that are the subject of this thread (or at least their public behaviour) that prevent me from having 'pride' in being British (whatever that means). They both encapsulate rather neatly what this country is becoming. But that's another subject all together.

Meanwhile athletes such as Kelly Holmes who *are* winning gold medals barely get a mention.

dpb

............is it blairs fault.

Hanslow

Didn't she run the fastest time for 10k this year by far? You can't doubt she's a top athlete, just either badly prepared for Athens, or something went wrong.

She is far from crap! People also forget that it takes a lot of hard work to get there in the first place, and for those that reach finals, they've had to beat a number of people in heats.

It's a shame she didn't get a medal, but them's the breaks

icebreaker

More like Radcliffe, the new Henman.

Big occasions seem too much for these type of people. I'm amazed she didn't complete the race (again)

Suresh

Regardless of past or future achievements, PR is a loser in Athens . Accept it and deal with it.

Kelly Holmes onthe other hand as our Uncle B rightly suggests is a WINNER.
Go Kelly!

Suresh

MooseRacer

Double gold for Kelly - now that would be somthing.

Chris L

Something else to consider here: For all athletes, the Olympics represents the absolute pinnacle of their careers - irrespecitve of whether you win a medal or not. Yes, there are some in field and track who have done very well out of sport, but for most in the less well know sports - there isn't a great deal of money to be made - it's about the love of your sport above everything else.

Obviously PR was picked for the GB team as she is undoubtedly a fine and talented runner. Her record upto these games speaks for itself. She has won at the highest level, holds world records etc etc. She therefore also has a moral obligation to compete for all she is worth - whether that means coming first or last. By going to the games it means another runner was not picked for the Olympic team. I wonder how that runner feels? Would she have given up in similar circumstances?

unclebuck

Strange isn't it? The English love their losers. Not interested in the winners. Political Correctness standing everything on it's head again, I supose.

Suresh

Well put.
I feel the same about drug cheats too. They deny a 'clean' athlete a chance to compete.

MooseRacer

Would be a fair point Chris, but it's the inability to distinguish between being physically or mentally unable to continue and 'giving up' that seems to have passed a fair few by.

How can you say she didn't compete for all she is worth?

MooseRacer

Strange isn't it how the English can revel in their athlete's failure and misfortune?

unclebuck

It's not a question of 'revelling'. In this case it was the manner of the failure not the failure itself. She dropped out tonight, but handled it very well. I've no problems with that.

The Daily Telegraph article by Robert Philip that Chris posted explains it better than I can, so here it is again:

"Radcliffe was a sore loser
By Robert Philip
(Filed: 25/08/2004)

The Tears of a Hero proclaimed one headline alongside a picture of Paula Radcliffe. Well, if it's heroes you want, then I'll give you heroes: Japan's Mizuki Noguchi, who won the Olympic marathon, was a hero. So, too, was Briton Liz Yelling, who produced a late sprint to overtake Maria Abel, of Spain, in a photo-finish for 25th place.

Nor should we forget her team-mate Tracey Morris, who ran in the same heat and up the same hills as Radcliffe to finish 29th only to be totally ignored by Fleet Street. And was there anyone more heroic than Mongolian Lursan Ikhundeg Otgonbayar, the 66th and last competitor across the line in the Panathanaiko Stadium, a full 30 minutes behind the woman in front and almost 1½ hours adrift of Noguchi?

But no, it is poor, distraught, anguished, heroic (I could go on but you get the drift) Radcliffe sitting in a gutter by the side of the road on whom we are expected to bestow the laurel leaf for Olympic gallantry.

Call me a cynic, but the way I see it is that unless the medics in Athens can come up with a physical reason why she quit just over three miles from the finish, Radcliffe stopped running and started bubbling for the simple reason that she had just seen gold, silver and bronze medals disappear into the distance.

A Sun editorial viewed things differently. "What an effort. What a heroine. Like all Britain's medal contenders she made us proud with her determination and spirit." As did the Daily Record. "Paula Radcliffe's Olympic dream died, the heat and energy-sapping hills around Athens proving just too much. But although she missed out on becoming the first Briton to win a Games marathon, she is still a great sporting hero."

And the Daily Mirror opined: "Was there ever a crueller end to an Olympic dream? It wasn't just that Paula Radcliffe failed to win the gold medal that seemed to have her name on it. It was the way she went out. In tears alone by the side of the road, shattered by the pain of the toughest marathon ever."

What most observers appear to have overlooked is that, yes, while there are only three medals on offer, every runner who completes any marathon course is a winner. Radcliffe - as brave, heroic, and dedicated as she might have proved herself to be in the past - was a loser on Sunday night and, judging by her reaction when she opted out of the race having conceded third place, a pretty sore loser at that.

But, hey, I am clearly in the minority. In these very pages former Olympic athlete David Bedford sought to explain the inexplicable (and even Radcliffe, herself, has failed to provide a reason why she sat on her stool like Sonny Liston conceding the world heavyweight title to Muhammad Ali) by saying: "She just couldn't go on and I imagine there was a whole raft of feelings in her head. Panic, shock and something close to bereavement." Bereavement? You clearly don't know the meaning of the word, David.

In Games' historian Bud Greenspan's epic tome 100 Greatest Moments In Olympic History, he relates the tale of Tanzanian John Stephen Akhwari, the last man home in the Mexico City marathon of 1968 - over an hour behind gold medallist Mamo Wolde, of Ethiopia - who entered the stadium with his left leg bloodied and bandaged, wincing with pain at every step. As one scribe put it: "Today we have seen a young African runner who symbolises the finest in human spirit . . . a performance that gives true meaning to sport . . . a performance that lifts sport out of the category of growing men playing at games."

When asked why he did not give up when he had no chance of winning, Akhwari replied: "I don't think you understand. My country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race. They sent me to finish the race."

MooseRacer

Like I said on the other thread, I'd rather she went all out for gold than had the 'it's the taking part that counts' mentality seemingly favoured by the writer of that article.

Suresh

Wow. Now that's a hero - someone who I can point to be a superlative role model for my children.

Suresh

ProperCharlie

I don't think the descision to pick her was too difficult - she is the only distance runner we have who had a hope in hell of winning.

I am now in broad agreement with UB on this point. (Okay, okay, so I've changed my mind )

PR f***ed up. Ok, it's not the end of the world but it doesn't make her a hero. She admitted in her interview after dropping out of the 10k that she went out to win (or at least place), and when she realised that she wasn't going to she pulled out.