Courage of the athlete who is streets ahead

Clare Balding13 April 2012

While Paula Radcliffe was breaking records with every rhythmical stride on her London Marathon debut and quite rightly receiving due praise and acclaim, another Paula was completing her seventh marathon.

On the last six occasions through the London streets, Paula Craig had been on her feet, running a best time of two hours, 57 minutes.

This time she was competing in a wheelchair.

Eleven months ago, while out on her bicycle training for a triathlon, Paula was hit from behind by a motorist.

The accident left her paralysed from the waist down. Being a passionate sportswoman, her first desire was to get back into the gym, to reinstate activity into her life and maintain her fitness.

She is an athletic, attractive blonde with a wicked Welsh sense of humour. She has muscles in her shoulders and upper arms that cause jaws to drop open in awe and envy.

Shortly after the accident, she was moved to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, which is also the base of ASPIRE's National Training Centre.

Fortune had dealt her a decent hand because the centre has been specifically developed for people with spinal cord injuries.

It has the only pool in the country with a ramp going down into the water so that wheelchairs can go right down into the water, allowing each individual to swim away independently and avoiding any undignified or uncomfortable transfer into the pool.

Fit or not, it takes some time to adapt to using a wheelchair and Paula initially had problems with her balance.

"I had thought it was just like sitting in a chair," she told the audience of the ASPIRE Sports Quiz Dinner.

"But then you are using your legs to balance you as you sit. I have no feeling in my legs and I had to learn to balance all over again."

Only six months after her accident, Paula decided she would like to take part in the London Marathon again.

She trained in the gym at Stanmore ( which has been adapted for wheelchair users), built up her upper body strength and, with the help of plenty of physio and the Velocity Wheelchair Racing Club, lined up on Sunday morning along with 32,000 other athletes.

Paula's ambition was to get near to her previous best time as a runner. She did much better than that: she completed in a time of 2:48 for a wheelchair debut that was nearly as sensational as that of Paula Radcliffe. Tanni Grey-Thompson won the race in a time of 2:22.51, with Michelle Lewis second in 2:37.07.

As there were only three women wheelchair athletes, Paula did not pick up any prize money or a medal.

But given her inexperience and the brevity of her training (five months) compared to the others, it was an outstanding performance. She is now fired up to compete in marathons around the world and to be back in London in next year to better her time.

"I loved the experience," she told me. "The nice thing about being in a wheelchair is that when you reach the cross-over point when runners are on Tower Bridge at 13 miles and I was underneath them on the Embankment at 22, they were all shouting me on and encouraging me.

"I am very lucky because I can still compete, I can still train, I can still enjoy sport. My life is great."

There is no need for any comment about the healing qualities of sport, the power of positive thinking or the inspirational qualities of people like Paula Craig. It's just a tale that deserved to be told.

Watch out for her name in marathons to come and at the Paralympics in Athens.

She won't be satisfied until she has a medal to call her own.

A month when we can beat the blues

Looking at the colours for the various races at Newmarket this week, it is staggering how few of them are familiar. Even the most valuable races on the card have a peculiar look to them which is refreshing.

The reason is that the all-conquering shades of blue are missing. The royal blue of the Godolphin army is yet to arrive from Dubai, while the dark navy of the Ballydoyle is making its early-season forays in Ireland before it invades for the larger races early next month.

Without the two major forces of European racing, Newmarket felt like racing from a bygone era. It illustrated how much the picture has changed, how much it is now dominated by a select few and how accustomed we have all become to their presence.

It's not good, it's not bad but it is the reality of modern Flat racing. The smaller owners cannot afford or do not have access to the best-bred horses and, except for the odd freak of nature, breeding is what defines and distinguishes a champion.

The sharper trainers are learning that they have to take their chances in the higher grade races before the big guns arrive to blow them out.

The traditional method of training a superior horse to peak for Royal Ascot has not disappeared, but it is becoming increasingly risky because by June, both Godolphin and Aidan O'Brien are in full flight and their stranglehold is well nigh impossible to break.

It means that the early spring meetings are entertaining, they allow the spoils to be shared around evenly. But they are largely irrelevant in shaping the story of the season to come.

League feathers its nest for a posh, southern bird

Having watched only a handful of rugby league matches before, it had taken plenty of homework and a few nerve-filled nightmares to assuage my fears that I would be vilified as a posh, southern bird who knew nothing about the 13-a-side game.

As it turned out, I could not have been made more welcome if they had laid out a red carpet and given me a bouquet of flowers.

I was overwhelmed by the warmth of the people I met (a little too warm in the case of the St Helens fan who embraced me outside the JJB Stadium and wouldn't stop kissing me), the accessibility and eloquence of both players and coaches and the quality of the action on the pitch.

The relentless physicality of the game means that the players have to have stamina levels unheard of in other sports. The fans appreciate the effort displayed on their behalf without resorting to mindless abuse of the opposition or of the opposing fans.

They prefer to watch from the ends rather than the sides of the stadium and, given that they all want to see their team scoring at their end, they frequently swap ends at half-time.

There is a joyful, noisy family atmosphere with children dangling their legs over the sides of walls and mothers wrapped in club colours.

The modern game probably overdoes the blaring music and the American-style cheerleaders but it has got a fabulous product to sell.

The sport itself is sensational, so why dress it up in fancy clothing?

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