Olympic hopes dashed Who's to blame for our Paula losing the marathon?
• Pheidippides - the Greek messenger who ran 26 miles from Marathon to Athens in 490BC to warn the Greeks of an imminent Persian attack. Had he popped down to the local beach for a spot of sunbathing rather than running over some nasty hills instead, our Paula would have been saved today's embarrassment.
• Baron de Coubertin - the French baron who founded the modern Olympic games in Athens in 1896. Had he not decided to commemorate Pheidippides' 26 mile run by inventing the marathon, our Paula would never have swapped events and would therefore still be on course to win gold in the Women's 10000m next Friday instead.
• The International Olympic Committee - the corrupt gathering of ageing geriatrics who voted seven years ago to select the city in which this Olympic Games would be held. Had they picked some temperate high-latitude city to host the 2004 Olympics rather than this Mediterranean hothouse then Paula would have swanned round the course without breaking into a sweat.
• George Souflias - the Greek public works minister who oversaw the exteremely late-running construction of the marathon course. Had he had both the time and the money to install a sprinkler system over the roadway and to build a tunnel underneath the really steep bits of the course, our Paula would now undoubtedly be clutching a gold medal.
• American TV companies - the corporate behemoths who hold sway over the timings of various Olympic events. Had they not demanded that the marathon start at 6pm Greek local time in order to suit the viewing habits of the all-powerful American TV audience, then the race could have started later in the evening when the heat wouldn't have been on our Paula.
• The parents of all the other competitors - the international couples who all had sex at exactly the right moment to unite one athletic egg with one super-stamina sperm. Had they practised contraception a little more effectively then no prodigious offspring would have been born and our Paula could have walked round the course unopposed.
• Paula Radcliffe - the brilliant athlete who used to go to my school. Sadly on the day when it counted our Paula just wasn't the best, so she lost. It's not fair though...
Olympic hopes dashed
