I can’t deny Paula wasn’t up to it on the day, but nobody gets that distraught if it’s just a job. I don’t invest my whole life in my job and I bet anonymous and RickyD don’t either. You don’t even get to compete at the olympics unless you put everything into it for years beforehand. The press love the story because it’s yet another classic British heroic failure. Others didn’t get medals and were hardly commented on. They just didn’t fail as spectacularly as Paula. Of course we all want to see winners, but I bet in 2008, as well as the success of Khan, Hoy, Pinsent, Ainslie in Athens we’ll be talking about Paula Radcliffe’s marathon run.
As for sycophantic/zonophobic reporting we’ve clearly been watching different BBC coverage. You’ve got commentators who’ve actually been there, who are genuine and say what they think. Makes a great change from listening to politicians.