Congratulations to Paula Radcliffe on the announcement that she’s got one in the oven.

The only down side is that she won’t be running for a while, and won’t be showing the world yet again that she’s the best female long-distance athlete ever, and Britain’s finest athlete of all time.

She breaks the women’s marathon record by a country mile, and proves herself time and time again - and yet people only want to criticise her and bring up her poor performance in Athens in ridiculous conditions when she shouldn’t have been running anyway due to illness.

The critics complain that she let her coutnry down, that she quit! They also bring up those heartbreaking 4th place finishes on the track -saying that she is always the ‘also ran’.

What are they on about? Have any of them ever run a marathon? Any of them done the 100+ miles a week that Paula does in her training?

World’s best ever long-distance female athlete?

Let her country down??? She is the BEST athlete we’ve ever had. Have a look at her personal bests:

• 8 km road - 24:05+ (World Best)
• 10 km road - 30:21 (World Record)
• 15 km road - 46:41+ (World Best)
• 10 mi road - 50:01+ (World Best)
• 20 km road - 1:02.21+ (World Record)
• Half Marathon - 1:05:40 (World Best)
• 25 km road - 1:20:36+ (World Best)
• 30 km road - 1:36:36+ (World Best)
• 20 mi road - 1:43:33+ (World Best)
• Marathon - 2:15:25 (World Record)

From the 8 Km up she is the best female road runner there has ever been!

It’s a shame she’s not going to be running in the European Championships next month, but I hope she is back running soon - and in Beijing 2008 I want to see her with that Olympic Gold round her neck.

She deserves it.