Sunday, September 30, 2007

Why is it relevant that Paula Radcliffe is now a mother?

The BBC headline read: "Paula Radcliffe is defeated in the Great North Run in her first race as a mother".

The linking page only says:
In the elite women's race, American Kara Goucher triumphed over second placed Paula Radcliffe, who was returning to competition for the first time in 21 months.
Now, I may be being picky but really - surely the significance is that she has been out for 21 months. And I'm not saying that pregnancy and motherhood do not take specific tolls on a person's body, but did the headline really have to imply "She's a mother! She's now rubbish!".

She came second. That's no mean feat. Why can't we just be chuffed at her coming back and being up to such a good standard in her first competitive race in 21 months?

7 comments:

J.J said...

Actually I have been feeling a bit sorry for the woman who won, as every reference to the race I have heard is about how Paula (a mother now apparently!) came second.

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

Goucher posted the fastest time this year, right?

Meanwhile, in other news Haile Gebrselassie demolished the men's marathon record.

Scarcely mentioned.

As Cloud says, a bit of a case of "in a South American earthquake that has killed over 10,000 people, one Briton has reported broken his toe - we talk exclusively to him now..."

Anna Lowman (annawaits) said...

Listening to Steve Cram and Brendan Foster eulogising about Paula Radcliffe is one of the most vomit-enducing things I've ever encountered... really, really not nice. You could tell that they were annoyed that that nasty Goucher woman took Paula's great comeback away from her...!

jams o donnell said...

What Gebreselassie did was amazing. It deserved more coverage.

While it is god to see Paula Radcliffe back running and I hope she is back in top form soon, the fact that she is now a mother is pretty irrelevant. It's not as if she had to stop halfway and feed the bairn!

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

My thought entirely jams! Surely the point is her being out of comp and not WHY she was...

Grr: I do hate it when commentators get too sycophantic about someone... (that is until they suddenly decide they need to be chopped down - gawd, fickle media...)

Rob said...

Some of us, biologically barred from pregnancy, still couldn't hope to equal Radcliffe's time, let alone Gebreselassie's.

Huge cheers for both, and for Goucher (as JJ said, surely the least-celebrated winner for ages).

Anna Lowman (annawaits) said...

Brendan and Steve especially seem to have their favourites and those they don't like so much - they're really harsh on Mark Lewis Francis; I know he often underperforms, but he's hard;y the only one!