Talk:Paula Radcliffe

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[edit] The old Olympics thing

I've reverted a couple of "Many people thought that what was disappointing was..." edits about the 2004 Olympics. Regardless of how they're dressed up, they're still not NPOV. --Mpk 16:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I would like someone to clarify what happened with the bathroom break thing during the 2005 London Marathon. It is a confusing issue to me.

She took a pee by the side of the road. That's all. Running well when you badly need to go is almost impossible, and being an old cross-country runner Paula had no qualms about going by the road - it would have taken a long time to get to any of the portapotties by the course, and would probably have cost a couple of minutes after getting through the crowds. While the BBC director figured out what was going on pretty fast and cut away to give her a little privacy, evidently at least one tabloid photographer didn't. --Mike 15:54, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I am pretty sure, after seeing the tape of her interview after the race that she did not pee by the side of the road. It was more likely a BM such as she suffered in the Athens Marathon due to her diet, medicine or something. Also, the BBC did not cut away while she was squatting down. The camera shot was from a helicopter when she squatted down. They cut to a replay from a camera on one of the motorcycles ahead of her to find out why she stopped. The commentator thought she might have a cramp. The video showed her stopping, doing her business and standing up again. The replay on the BBC later that evening cut out the bathroom break but the live (or nearly live) footage showed it. The fact that she went to the bathroom on the side of the street is included in this article not because she went to the bathroom (everyone goes right) but the way she went to the bathroom, "al fresco" as the articles used to say, and in full view of cameras and everyone. If she hadn't been in the middle of a race and had done that she would have been ticketed for public indecency. The amazing thing to me is that there aren't more pictures of her than that same tired old picture. More than a year later no other more revealing pics have surfaced. Please do not try to rewrite history, I've seen the video. This article does not clearly state what happened in my opinion.
She "went to the bathroom"? I thought the big deal was that she *didn't* go to the bathroom. --Mike 08:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

I am sorry Mpk, I thought my edit summary was enough without necessitating a discussion on the talk page. Phrases like 'most informed commentators would think...' or similar are, to my mind, the very definition of weasel words. I wonder if most athletes world-wide (rather than just her UK friends and colleagues) really would support her actions. I wonder if, had she been American or Australian, her compatriots would have supported her at all. I am mindful of a similar case involving an Australian rower who gave up during a race and was subsequently villified. Are foreigners therefore not informed commentators? Nevertheless, since neither you nor I can possibly a) canvass enough opinions to know viewpoints for sure; b) define objectively who is and who isn't an informed commentator, then it really is a moot point. Can we agree by consensus what would be a decent compromise wording? I must confess, I thought my previous edit was OK in this regard, but I will go along with the majority. Cheers, Badgerpatrol 00:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

From what I remember, with the exception of one former Olympian on the BBC (who wasn't a marathoner anyway) people who knew what they were talking about were indeed broadly supportive, especially when the reasons became clear a bit later. The marathon being the event it is, occasions do arise when it becomes simply physically impossible to continue, especially when already running on a not-quite-healed injury -- at the elite end of the scale, that can be a career-ender. I wrestled with those words for a bit and the best I could come up with was "informed commentators" - those informed commentators being fellow marathon runners and people who are familiar with the event. While there are always going to be a few macho "Huh! Quitter!" types out there, my observation of the aftermath was that while tabloid journalists and a few American college kids on letsrun.com considered her a quitter/loser/whatever, fellow elite marathoners certainly didn't. (I'm not an elite marathoner, by the way. I'm a lousy 3:40 marathoner, bah.)
Ultimately, she'd basically been absorbing nothing from her food for the last few days, and just ran flat out of energy - on top of the remains of the injury and the heat in Athens she only got as far as she did out of sheer bloody-mindedness. --Mike 06:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what we think as individuals, or what we think the 'truth' actually is, one ought to avoid weasel words, and statements should be verified (or at least, be verifable). That's wikipedia policy. If altered suitably, the exposition you just gave above would be OK in the article itself as a beginning. Instead of phrases like 'most informed comentators...'or 'people who knew what they were talking about..' (which are totally subjective statements, in a number of ways) we would then have a more exact retelling of what was a fairly important (i.e. notable) event in Radcliffe's career. If there were dissenters within Auntie's commentary team (was it Michael Johnson? I forget to be honest) then that can go in as a specific; if the tabloid press labelled her a quitter, then we should try and find those stories and link to them. If subsequent editorials were favourable, then we ought to try and find those too. The beauty of Wiki is that there are no space restrictions- if the info is relevant, then there is no reason to exclude it. Whether or not she was hard done by isn't really the issue here- I am not pro- or anti- Radcliffe. I am however pro- writing a good, NPOV article. Cheers for the response, Badgerpatrol 14:23, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
I know what you mean about writing an NPOV article. Part of my problem here is that paragraph was originally excessively POV in the other direction. I'll admit now I don't have time to cite references other than my memory, so I've attempted to deweasel it a bit - see what you think. As far as space limits are concerned I'm not sure that it's actually a good thing to have a rambling, reference-heavy article - it's also possible to put the facts in far fewer words, but you have to be more careful about how you choose those words. I think this might be what we're running into here... --Mike 20:53, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mommybloggery

While I am sure Isla is a beautiful baby, I'm not sure her health, precise hour and minute of birth, and birth weight are relevant to an encyclopedia article, especially as she is not yet (at least in the eyes of the public) the most notable thing to have issued from Paula Radcliffe's nether regions during her career. A Sheep 13:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intro needs a rewrite...

...in order to give an overview of her sports career, not an analysis of her marathon world record. GregorB 17:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand how the intro author figured the marathon time is comparable with the world record at 100m. He states her time of 2h15m25s over a distance of 42195 meters breaks down to 9.75 - 9.76 per 100m. However, that's a total of 8125 seconds over the marathon distance, or about 19.25 seconds per 100m. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.207.101.112 (talk) 10:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It was done using IAAF Scoring Tables (see http://www.iaaf.org/news/newsId=20021,printer.html), not by directly comparing running speed, of course. GregorB 11:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Layout/Intro.

Intro is better now, although I still think this marathon world record thing should be analyzed in the body of the article... GregorB 20:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Where do you think the paragraph would be best suited? btw, I had a go at changing the layout, but not 100% sure about it, is it easier to read through now? Sue Wallace 04:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I guess that would be the 2003 London Marathon section... I was thinking about tweaking the intro myself (as I did recently on the Haile Gebreselassie article), but I'm a bit less familiar with her career. Note that Haile's intro had a similar problem: it pushed a single fact to the front, while failing to give a more complete career overview. GregorB 19:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
That's a good neat article. I've moved the paragraph, but article still needs a lot of work. I'm not familiar with her career either tbh, I only really wanted to add cites originally, because that's my bugbear. Sue Wallace 22:16, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heads up - she's in the AP today (11-9-07)

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMBqOUODY7FxOY0jkYcdvW0pu4vAD8SPNU380 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.213.57.50 (talk) 16:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Medals table

Not sure about the Marathon section. There's no indication in the World Marathon Majors article that they actually give out medals in these events.Pawnkingthree (talk) 16:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)