Was Paula Radcliffe the best ever?

After over two decades of involvement in track and field and road racing, Paula Radcliffe finished her last final competitive marathon on Sunday in London. Her career, like many, saw high and low points throughout, but few athletes in any sport have seen highs as far ahead of their competition as Radcliffe, though her career wasn’t filled only with wins.

Some say she was the best marathon runner ever but, despite her incredible world record, others consider her lack of the elusive Olympic gold a hole in her career.

1992 world cross country

At the 1992 world cross-country championships, Radcliffe won her first international title in the women’s junior race. The meet was a starting point for a long and storied rivalry with Gete Wami, an Ethiopian who would grow into another world class athlete. The two saw many hard-fought battles on the track and roads as they developed alongside one another.

Radcliffe also beat Wan Junxia at that 1992 championship. The young Chinese star would go on to break the women’s 10,000m world record the following summer, a mark which still stands.

1990s rise to prominence

By the time her junior years were behind her, Radcliffe had already made the transition smoothly into the elite ranks of world distance running. She finished in the top 20 at the 1993 world cross-country championships and seventh in the world championship 3,000m later the summer.

Missing all of the 1994 season due to injury, Radcliffe made her first Olympic team in 1996 where she finished fifth in the 5,000m at the age of 22.

Though dominant for a long period during the early 2000s, Radcliffe won her first of only two world championship track medals in 1999, finishing second in 10,000m.

2000 Olympic Games

Radcliffe, in her second Olympics and now a global star, finished, for her, a disappointing fourth at the Athens Olympics in the 10,000m. Though no one expected it at the time, this result would end up being the best finish she ever saw at the Olympics.

Later that year, Radcliffe won her first of three world half-marathon titles, marking the start of her incredible marathon dominance.

The marathon wins

Paula Radcliffe will be remembered for her incredible dominance of the 42.4K distance on the roads, a role she took on from her very first try at race. Many of even the greatest marathon runners ever take a few tried before excelling at the distance. In 2002, at the age of 28, she ran her first marathon, the London Marathon, in an incredible 2:18:55 debut, the second-fastest result ever and less than 10 seconds off a world record.

In the fall, she shattered the existing world record at the Chicago Marathon, running 2:17:18, a time that before that race was unthinkable.

The following spring Radcliffe  shattered her own record, setting what she is best today known for. In her second of three victories at the London Marathon, she ran 2:15:25, a time that today stands nearly three full minutes ahead of anyone besides herself. She would also win the 2005 London Marathon and, on three occasions –2004, 2007, 2008 – win in New York City.

2004 and 2008 Olympics

Coming off a world record and her third world half-marathon championship, at 30 years old, Radcliffe was the favourite to win the 2004 Olympics. Skipping the 2004 London Marathon, she trained through the spring with the hopes of competing in both the marathon and 10,000m, though only weeks out from the Games suffered an injury.

Still, on the first day of athletics competition Radcliffe lined up to race and led much of the marathon, before slowing and dropping out. She started the 10,000m days later, but again failed to finish.

Four years later, leading up the 2008 Olympics, despite missing the entire 2006 season to give birth to her first child and missing much of her training again to injury, the Briton hoped to take on what would be her final Olympics. Keeping pace with the leaders until shortly after 30K, Paula again was forced to stop. She went on to finish the race in 23rd.

In July of 2012, Radcliffe admitted she was unfit to compete in the upcoming Games at home in London, closing the doors on her dream of an Olympic medal. She continued to compete at a high level in various races, though in a reduced capacity and, this past winter, announced she would finish her professional career on the same course where she set her world record, in London.

Last Sunday, with two children watching, Paula Radcliffe ended a long career as one of the world’s best marathon runners ever. She ran 2:36:55, a modest pace by her standards.

She leaves behind a record that’s hard to imagine being broken in the near future, but was she the best women’s marathon runner ever? A time as fast as hers suggests possibly, but a lack of any Olympic medals, let alone the gold many consider a prerequisite for the title, leaves the question open for consideration. Still, there are few who were as dominant as her.