Paula Radcliffe has a stress fracture....bye bye Beijing

If she runs in Beijing, THEN I'd like to know what drugs she's on...

the olympics are supposed to be a place that is politically neutral.....free of war and war-like behavior. But remember my words "SUPPOSED TO BE."

To our friendly serial patient - the doctor seems to confirm my intuition. I just don't see it - ok, I can see how a woman in the picture of health could have a fracture "healed" in a matter of 6 weeks - but then she has to turn around and start running 15 - 20 miles a day in intense preparation? I wish her nothing but the best but this seems a daunting prospect.

Idiot - clearly no idea what he’s talking about.

Paula is a totally irrelevant figure where Britain’s tax exiles are involved.

For those who don’t know, Britain has extraordinary generous rules for tax exiles.

While the media (and twerps on Letsrun) concentrates on the celebrity names that have made Monaco their home - Ringo Starr, Formula One drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button and film stars like Roger Moore - they are far outnumbered by the army of business people who enjoy our country's zero income and capital gains tax rate. Even the fabulously wealthy Barclay brothers, who own one of the Channel Islands, are officially based in Monaco.

In fact, so many of Britain’s super rich, who run some of our most profitable companies live there that the French call it the English Rock.

Tackling the tax-loss incurred by these people would make a significant dent in our current borrowing requirements, not chasing Paula for the insignificant sum she’d contribute in comparison with the billions the super-rich save by ‘anonymously’ residing abroad.

So there are even richer people saving even more money, big deal, it doesn't make it right. Supposedly proud to be British, well lets see you contribute to British society.

celebrity names that have made Monaco their home - Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton

Actually Lewis Hamilton lives in Geneva. For some reason race car drivers like Switzerland as Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Nick Heidfeld, Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost also live there.

Pool running and plenty if it. 15-20 miles per day in the pool.

Yikes, she'll be like a prune.

OK..focus....

Anyway, in 8 weeks she can be out and running on the roads again without losing conditioning.

It's the only way I know of.

2:28 wrote:

Pool running and plenty if it. 15-20 miles per day in the pool.

Yikes, she'll be like a prune.

OK..focus....

Anyway, in 8 weeks she can be out and running on the roads again without losing conditioning.

It's the only way I know of.

Um, she'll lose conditioning, in her musculo-skeletal system. A marathoner cannot improve, or even maintain, with 8 weeks away from weight-bearing exercise.

Paula will be okay for Peking. You can bet on it.

Damn, I was trying to be gentle on her.

money money money wrote:

Paula is a great runner but I have no time for tax exiles, we have one of the lowest income tax rates in Europe and yet she chooses to reside in MONACO. Exactly how much money does she need? The highest rate of tax in the uk is 40%, regardless of how many millions you are bringing in. Money mad I say!

Why should the uk public support her when she contributes nothing to uk society financially?

How rude of Paula, to not give 40 percent of her earnings to the QUEEN - a point in Paula's favor regardless of her nonsense about drugs.

There are too many British subjects already who rejoice in their serfdom - either that or have their heads cut off, not much of a choice. With their heads intact they can cast their dispersions, having paid what little pittance they had.

Yes, you’re right, Hamilton does now live in Switzerland - and like all those other race drivers - for tax purposes.

Incidentally, and putting poor Paula’s situation into perspective, one of our rather more wealthier British tax-exiles has bought a ’house’ in London, paying out £117 million. That’s about $230 million - a considerable sum, even by American standards.

Still, unlike Paula, he is worth about £27.7 billion, (and pays zero tax) so I suppose that’s just small change to him.

So much tax money is wasted over here in Britain, that, were I in Paula’s situation - I’d move to Monaco as well.

Millions of Britain’s are fleeing the country for ever anyway.

An authoritative view on Paula’s chances for Beijing

"End of the road for in-denial Radcliffe

TO say things do not look good for Paula Radcliffe is an understatement. Three months before the Olympic marathon she is on crutches, with a complicated injury that evaded an initial MRI scan. She cannot do any cross-training and, even if she somehow manages to run again soon, she probably needs at least two months of 130-mile weeks to be competitive.

Then, if this miracle does occur, a 34-year-old with a history of asthma will face stifling heat, humidity and pollution, plus the best Japan,

China, Kenya and Ethiopia can throw at her in an event that is so notoriously volatile it makes the Grand National horse race look positively predictable in comparison.

Things did not look great in the spring, when Radcliffe took her first tentative steps back running following a career-threatening toe injury that sidelined her for two months. Since then I suspect she has overdone it in training. Gripped by Olympic fever, she has desperately pushed her body in an all-or-nothing gamble to get fit for Beijing. But what else could she do? Every training schedule contains an element of risk. There are no higher stakes than the Olympics either.

Earlier this week Radcliffe termed it a “little setback” and she was described as upbeat. Such mental fortitude and unwillingness to accept defeat made her a world record-holder, but surely it is not founded in reality.

“Denial,” the famous writer Mark Twain once pointed out, “is not just a river in Egypt.” Indeed, in this instance it is also Radcliffe, refusing to accept her Olympic dream is slipping from her fingers. She is not the only one in denial. Somewhat bizarrely, she was officially named this week for the Games.

The Times likened Paula’s plight to that of Monty Python’s Black Knight, who famously reacted to a severed limb by saying: “Just a flesh wound.”

But this is not funny. It is a tragedy. Paula is the best British athlete of this millennium, perhaps the greatest British woman athlete in history and surely the No.1 female marathoner of all time. For her not to be at the Olympics is nothing short of disastrous.

She is set to join the many British endurance athletes who have never won Olympic gold: Steve Cram, Roger Bannister, Dave Moorcroft,

Gordon Pirie, Dave Bedford, Steve Jones, Brendan Foster and Liz McColgan. They remain greats in our eyes and so will Radcliffe."