Training today- well I was planning to do a fast road run today but I had to settle for an hour at a gentle pace.  I've been feeling rather queasy the last couple of days.  After bragging the other day about being resistant to illness, I've come down with a stomach bug.  I know where it came from.  My parents had picked up a bug on their cruise and they must have passed it on to me when I saw them again at the weekend.  Thanks folks!  Experience tells me that this sort of thing passes through the system within a couple of days so I hope to be fighting fit in time for the Gosport half marathon on Sunday.

I was going to come back to the topic of Paula Radcliffe today.  I hadn't intended to do this, but recently I have been disturbed by the level of personal abuse directed towards her by certain sections of the press.

Paula is one of our  most succesful ever athletes.  In a career lasting nearly twenty years she has won major titles on track, road and country.  Her 2:15 marathon is arguably the greatest ever running performance achieved by any female athlete.  In addition Paula is a bright and intelligent young woman, with a pleasant and friendly personality, who has been an inspiration and a role model for thousands of young athletes.  So what's to dislike?

Well quite a lot apparently.  There seems to be a certain type of journalist who has got it in for Paula, particularly male sports journalists.  You know the type.  They love their sport!  They could sit and watch it all day, with a glass of whisky in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  The latest article in this genre has come from Mr Brian Reade of the Daily Mirror. (Click here to read it)   Paula hardly needs my help to stand up to the likes of Mr Reade, but I thought I would list the accusations together with my take on them.

Paula is a big cry baby.  There seem to be double standards operating here, maybe a hint of misogyny.  It's okay for a male sports star, even a big, beefy rugby player, to shed a tear after a disappointing performance.  It might be considered rather noble even.  But if Paula does it, then it's because she's a pathetic girlie, who's trying to draw attention to herself!

Paula doesn't want to compete for Britain, but just targets those events which have large prize money.  In a very long career, Paula has competed for Britain innumerable times.  She has attended four Olympics, six World Championships and countless other events on road, track and country.  There can't be many athletes who have competed for Britain more often than she has. Admittedly she hasn't competed much for Britain in the last few years, but then for various reasons - pregnancy, injury - she hasn't competed very much at all.  As for competing for money, well Paula is a professional athlete, she has a family to keep, it's what she does.  You don't find journalists lambasting Andy Murray for entering Wimbledon or Tiger Woods for entering the Open. Oh no, of course not, because they're men.

Paula lives as a tax exile in Monaco, thereby depriving the taxpayer of huge funds.  I checked out the article from which Mr Reade derives this information. (Click here)   Paula chose to base herself in France for a number of reasons, the main one being that she likes to do the bulk of her training at altitude.  You can do this in Font Romeu, but not in Bedford.  Also, as the article makes clear, she still has to pay some tax.  Also I'm not so sure Paula is as fabulously wealthy as Mr Reade suggests.  She rents an apartment in Monaco as she cannot afford to buy anything.  I suspect she started in New York this year, when injured, because this was pretty much her only big pay day of the year and she couldn't afford to miss it.

Paula rakes in vast sums in lottery funding, (while living as a tax exile and declining to run for Britain blah, blah, blah, blah)  I checked out the facts on this one and here they are.  Firstly very few athletes receive lottery funding these days (33 last time I checked).  Secondly the absolute maximum you can receive is just over twenty five thousand pounds per annum (i.e. about the same as the most mediocre Premier League footballer receives in a week)  Thirdly Paula is currently on the C list, which means the most she could theoretically receive is the grand sum of £12 600 per year.  And fourthly lottery funding is means tested, so if your income from other sources goes up, your lottery funding goes down.  The amount of money Paula actually receives from the National Lottery is, I suspect, zero.

I'd better stop there as I've wittered on long enough.  Not all journalists feel the need to write such malicious and ill informed nonsense. Try this article for instance. (Click here)   I'd like there to be a happy end to this saga and I'd like it to be Paula winning the Olympic gold in 2012.  At which point all those journalists who have enjoyed knocking her will declare that they never doubted her for a minute!

Tags: Paula Radcliffe

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