WELL DONE PAULA
Radcliffe wins NY marathon
Paula Radcliffe yesterday sent out a warning to her Olympic rivals that she is back to her best by fending off her great foe Gete Wami to land a thrilling victory in the New York Marathon.
Just nine months since the birth of her daughter Isla, Radcliffe won the seventh marathon of her career, beating Ethiopian Wami after a tussle which lasted almost all of the 26.2 miles.
"I have had years of her outsprinting me and I was not going to let it happen again," said Radcliffe as Wami took the lead with less than a mile left before the Briton responded to surge away to glory.
"The marathon is my territory. I knew we had an uphill climb in Central Park. I have run here so much. At the finish when I looked around I expected her to be behind me, and she wasn't."
Radcliffe triumphed in 2:23.09, beating Wami by 23 seconds with Latvia's defending champion Jelena Prokopcuka third.
The rivalry with Wami goes back to the 1992 world junior cross country championships in Boston, where Radcliffe triumphed. But most famously, Wami beat her on the final lap of the 10,000metres at the World Championships in Seville in 1999 after the Briton had led all the way.
Radcliffe added: "I didn't have the breathing problems I usually get towards the end, but my legs felt very tired."
Wami's consolation was the £250,000 first prize in the World Marathon Majors series.
In the men's event, Martin Lel of Kenya produced a repeat of this year's London race when he pulled away from Moroccan Abderrahim Goumri in the last few hundred metres to win in 2:09:04.
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