Weather worries won't affect Radcliffe

Race favourite Paula Radcliffe has shrugged off the fact the weather is unlikely to be helpful when she bids for the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon title on Sunday.

After her brilliant debut over the distance when posting the fastest time ever achieved by a woman in last April’s Flora London Marathon, Radcliffe has been tipped to add another success to her inventory.

Indeed, everyone is claiming Radcliffe will smash the world record on the Windy City course which saw defending champion Catherine Ndereba post the current mark of two hours 18 minutes 47 seconds last October.

Although confident of her ability to win, Radcliffe isn’t taking the Kenyan or any of her other talented rivals for granted on a course rated by former champion Paul Evans to be the quickest in the world.

Evans has predicted, on the basis of the 2:18.57 Radcliffe ran in London, she can get close to the 2:15 barrier.

“The Chicago course is at least one-and-a-half minutes faster,” claimed the 1996 winner.

Although flattered by his comments, Radcliffe said: “The weather forecast isn’t good. A strong wind and rain is expected. That doesn’t suit me and won’t help as I always like to run fast.

“I’ll be running against world class opposition and I have no intention of underestimating any one of them.

“Everybody who stands on the startline is a rival, I certainly won’t focus only on Ndereba. Yoko Shibui, Deena Drossin and several others are strong competitors.

“The most important thing will be winning and I’m not making any specific attempt on the world record.”

Radcliffe insisted she is fully recovered from a tendon strain in her right leg following a minor accident the night before winning the Nike 10K road race in a European record time just over a fortnight ago.

“I slipped on the bathroom floor and strained a tendon which meant I had to take two days off from training,” said Radcliffe. “But I’m sure the rest did me good. That’s life and it was a little sore, but didn’t bother me in the race.”

After her marvellous feat of winning the Commonwealth 5,000m and European 10,000m gold medals, Radcliffe prepared for this weekend’s race at altitude in Font Romeau at her second residence in the French Pyrenees, before the London race.

After winning there she travelled for a final check-out with Limerick-based physio Gerard Hartmann, who has been a great mentor in building her confidence up during the transition to the marathon.

Totally satisfied she is ready in all respects for the Chicago challenge, Radcliffe said: “I was in Ireland for 11 days and I am really happy with how things went there.

“I spent time there before the London Marathon so I was in familiar territory for my final training block.”