Radcliffe Undecided on 10,000m

Paula Radcliffe has yet to decide whether she will attempt to turn around the wreckage of her Olympic Games by aiming for gold in the 10,000m on Friday.

Radcliffe was expected to win gold in yesterday's marathon but her race ended in disaster as she burst into tears at the side of the road with three miles of the race still to run.

Her spectacular failure in an event in which she had previously been unbeaten led to speculation that she would compete in the 10,000m, but Radcliffe refused to be drawn on that today.

"My plan was to come here and run the marathon and win the marathon and then decide after that," she said. "Nothing has changed.

"It is not something I am going to decide in the next 24 hours. Emotionally and physically I need time to make a decision - part of me wants to do it but I can't do it if I'm not right.

"But I will be back definitely," she added. "I will pick myself up and I will be back."

In an emotion interview this afternoon, Radcliffe admitted she was at a loss to know what had happened or how she should react.

But she refused to blame the conditions, even though the temperatures during the race were approaching 100 degrees, for her failure to maintain the pace when eventual winner Mizuki Noguchi made a decisive break.

"I can't look to the conditions as an excuse," she said. "I had prepared for those conditions.

"It was something I had worked for for so long - it was the one thing I was aiming for," she added. "A little bit of a bad day I could have got away with, but to have such a bad day....

"I think it is the first or second time I have dropped out of a race. I still had 6km to go and I just did not think I could make it.

"Knowing I was going backwards and was out of the medals, maybe that was the kick in the stomach, but once you have stopped you can't start again."

Radcliffe, who carried not only the weight of expectation of being world record holder going into the race but the hopes of the entire nation, revealed she felt she had to front up to her failure today.

"In a way it makes it more difficult. I am hurting so much inside for myself, I felt I had left everyone down," she told the BBC.

"I think people deserve an explanation. I have had so much support the whole way through my career and everyone deserves an explanation."

Radcliffe had been Britain's chief hope for gold prior to the Games.

"It's really difficult - I am still waiting for the results of tests they did. I set off not too bad. I didn't feel conditions were excessively bothering me heatwise but after 15-20km I felt nothing in my legs," she added.

"I felt I could regroup but in the end I was struggling to stay on the road and I felt numb."