Athletics: Radcliffe sets sights on second gold medal
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Your support makes all the difference.After waiting nine years for her first, Paula Radcliffe will be aiming to collect her second gold medal from a major championship in a week's time.
Radcliffe finally claimed the honour that has eluded her so often in the past, by winning the Commonwealth Games 5,000 metres on Sunday night in emphatic fashion and obliterating the old Games record in the process. Her attentions now turn to the European Championships starting in Munich next week, and with the perennial runner-up tag now discarded she will go there with confidence.
"That was definitely a big step forward. It was a very important race for me to win, and it was crucial to win a title on the track," she said. "In Sydney [at the 2000 Olympics] I didn't have the strength to run the race the way I had planned it. But last night went better than I could have hoped. I'm going to Ireland to prepare with my physiotherapist [Gerard Hartmann] so I can compete to my best in Munich."
Radcliffe said her tears at the medal ceremony were in response to the superb atmosphere within the City of Manchester Stadium. She said: "Standing there on the podium, that was something I will never ever forget. The atmosphere in that stadium when the national anthem was playing brought me to tears, not the anthem just the atmosphere of the crowd."
Radcliffe reiterated her disappointment that the stadium will become first and foremost an arena for football when Manchester City take up residence next summer.
"I just think the atmosphere was so special, it's given me a lot of great memories so for me it's a shame we don't have a national stadium any more that can stage international championships. Plus the fact it's a fast track as well so to rip that up is a big shame."
Jonathan Edwards, who completed a triple jump Grand Slam, on Sunday, echoed Radcliffe's sentiments. "It was on a par with the Olympic Games, and a step above the World Championships," he said.
"Obviously, Gothenburg [where he broke the world record] was a special one for me but in terms of atmosphere Manchester was second only to Sydney.
"When you take into account there were 112,000 people there, to say it was a close second is really something. If there had been 112,000 Mancunians, goodness knows what it would have been like."
Edwards' best jump in two years, 17.86m, earned him Commonwealth gold to add to the titles of Olympic, World and European champion.
He is not sure if he will compete at the Olympics in Athens in 2004. He said: "It depends what day of the week you ask me, even what hour of the day you ask me. It doesn't really sway me one way or the other, but I can't ignore that I was two-thirds of the way to the world record last night, but I'm no further on with this conundrum."
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