Athletics: Radcliffe Targets World Record in the Park

Paula Radcliffe will attempt to break her world record of 30min 21sec when she competes in the Nike Run London 10km race in Hyde Park on Sunday. It will be Radcliffe's first outing since winning the marathon gold medal at the world championships in Helsinki in August.

It had been thought Radcliffe planned to treat the race as a fun run but Gary Lough, her husband and manager, said yesterday: "This is Paula's first race since the world championships and she intends to take it very seriously."

Radcliffe would fulfil a contractual obligation to her sponsors by finishing her run and then returning to the start to cover the course again with a group of fun runners promised a jog with her as part of a national competition. It is possible because the event's 40,000 runners are sent off in waves.

Sunday's race is also a chance for Radcliffe to gauge her fitness after a period of rest. "We don't know who else is running but she will race whoever is there," said Lough. "She's only been training for a few weeks and this will show her where she is."

It marks the start of a busy schedule for Radcliffe. She plans to make a rare appearance the following week for her club Bedford & County in the AAA four-stage road relays at Sutton Park, Birmingham. It will be her first appearance at the event in four years.

She will then run 15km in the Seven Hills Race in Nijmegen, Holland, on November 20 and three days later represent Britain at an Ekiden road relay in Japan.

Craig Pickering, the European junior 100 metres champion, yesterday withdrew from England's Commonwealth Games 4x100m relay squad. The teenager wants to concentrate on his studies at Bath University rather than travel to Melbourne in March. "It's fantastic that I was selected in the England relay squad," said Pickering. "But I would have to go to a training camp for four weeks and, after the Games, it would be another week before I got back into university.

"I have decided it would be too difficult to take so much time out of studies only a few weeks before my first-year exams. So I shall have a full indoor season at home for the first time this winter, running 60m, then go outdoors and hopefully make the relay teamfor next summer's European Championships."