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Track & Field Home Athletes Schedule Results Medals Radcliffe aims for third New York title

(Updates with quotes/details)

By Larry Fine

NEW YORK, Oct 1 (Reuters) – World marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe will attempt for a second time this November to atone for an Olympic disappointment by winning the New York marathon.

The 34-year-old Briton told a teleconference on Wednesday she would defend her title on Nov. 2 after finishing 23rd in the Beijing Olympics marathon. Her training had been badly disrupted by a stress fracture of her left femur sustained in May.

Four years ago Radcliffe came back after failing to finish the Athens Olympic marathon to win her first New York title.

Radcliffe said she believed she would be in good enough shape to bid for her third win in the race through each of the city’s five boroughs.

“Definitely, definitely,” Radcliffe said. “I mean, that’s why I would be going there.

“I think what Grete (Waitz) did here winning nine was amazing. But to even just win New York three times is a big achievement and would be to me. That’s certainly the aim in going there.”

“I’m hopefully in good shape, I think good enough shape to commit now to running the race and building on that between now and the race.”

Last year Radcliffe won in New York after maternity leave during which she gave birth to daughter Isla.

Radcliffe said her troubles in Beijing stemmed from a lack of road racing in her preparation for the Olympics, won by 38-year-old Romanian Constantina Tomescu.

To save the pounding on her healing leg, she used a high-tech, anti-gravity treadmill and a variety of cross-training methods to build stamina.

“I should have run a lot better than that,” she said. “But what I didn’t have was running-specific fitness and enough time on my legs, which I guess is what caused the calf to cramp up.

“I just needed to get out there. There is no substitute for running.”

NO REGRETS

Radcliffe said she stood by her decision to compete in Beijing, even if she was disappointed in the result.

“I totally don’t regret being there because I worked really hard to give myself that chance,” she said. “Being in the race and giving it a shot is 100 times better than watching it on TV.

“I would have watched it on TV and I would have thought, ‘I could have gone there, I could have gone there and done something.’ But I don’t regret it at all.”

Radcliffe confirmed she wanted to run in the 2012 London Olympics.

“I think there’s more Olympics for me,” she said. “I don’t think my Olympic career is over yet. I know that probably the best years for achieving it might have gone, but then you never know.

“I mean, Constantina was 38 and…she ran really well and she went out there and seized it and deserved it fully in Beijing. So there is still a chance.” (Editing by John Mehaffey)