Radcliffe says she’s a go for fourth Olympic marathon

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Paula Radcliffe will run the marathon at the Beijing Olympics “unless my leg breaks down.”

The world record holder from Britain, who on Monday joined her teammates at a training center in Macao, is recuperating from a stress fracture to her left thigh. But Radcliffe, 34, believes she is well enough to run in her fourth straight Olympics.

“The aim has always been to start the race,’ Radcliffe told Associated Press. ‘Everyday I go out and plan to start the race. I’m getting more and more confident, because every day you run more on it and it gets stronger.”

Radcliffe dropped out of the 2004 Athens Games marathon but won the world marathon championship a year later in Helsinki, Finland.

Radcliffe in February won the Laureus Worlds Sports Awards ‘Comeback of the Year’ prize after winning the New York Marathon following a two-year break following childbirth.

“I feel good. I feel happier even to be at this stage,” Radcliffe said. “I know from the stuff that I’ve done that I’m in good enough shape to be on the start line.”