Athletics: Forget the Collective Misery and Applaud Radcliffe's Rivals

One of the world's outstanding athletes won the women's 10,000m at the world championships on Saturday evening and it is time she was given proper credit for her achievements.

Ethiopia's 19-year-old Tirunesh Dibaba trounced the world's best and finished the race looking as though she had just completed a training run. It would be no surprise if she were to win the 5,000m on Saturday in equally impressive manner.

Paula Radcliffe was surely misguided in competing in the race only eight days before the marathon and only an outstanding performance on Sunday would disprove that theory. But the undeniable fact proved by her ninth-place finish, 18 seconds behind Dibaba, is that she will surely never now win an individual track gold at either a world championship or an Olympics.

So it is high time the British media got real in assessing Radcliffe's races. She is not some sort of national treasure. She is simply an athlete who tries her best but who has been shown to be vulnerable in truly competitive race conditions. On paper she should win the marathon on Sunday provided she shows no adverse reaction to her 10,000m defeat either physically or psychologically. But, after Athens, it would not be a shock if she lost again.

What remains unpalatable about the endless analysis of Radcliffe's performances is the lack of credit given to her opponents. In Athens Mizuki Noguchi won the marathon brilliantly. Similarly it was wrong to wallow in collective misery after Radcliffe's latest setback when Dibaba is clearly one of the best runners ever to have emerged from the African continent.

There is nothing wrong with hoping any sporting star succeeds but the analysis of Radcliffe verges on the obsessive. I get the feeling that she does not particularly enjoy her goldfish-bowl existence and perhaps our national fixation with the cult of celebrity leads to a warped perspective of performance and expectations.

A greater sense of realism in assessing Radcliffe's career would be welcome, not least to the athlete herself, even at this late stage. It would allow her the chance to enjoy the remaining years she has in the sport for which she still has an enduring passion.