Return of the queen: Tulu takes New York

NEW YORK -- Derartu Tulu came here hoping to compete, not expecting to win. Paula Radcliffe came here knowing she would compete, hoping she could win a fourth title.

Reality played out quite unexpectedly over 26.2 miles for the two legends and longtime rivals.

Tulu, competing for just the fourth time in the last three years, added a new chapter to her groundbreaking career when she pulled away late in the race to become the first Ethiopian woman to win the ING New York City Marathon.

Radcliffe, the world-record holder who was aiming for a fourth career victory here and a place alongside nine-time champion Grete Waitz as the most decorated New York champions, was unable to shake a nagging injury and wound up fading to fourth place.

Tulu crossed the finish line in two hours, 28 minutes, 52 seconds. She was followed by 41-year-old Russian Ludmila Petrova, who finished runner-up for the second straight year in 2:29:00. Christelle Daunay of France finished third in 2:29:16, 11 seconds ahead of Radcliffe.

"In general I'm extremely happy to have won today's race," Tulu said through an interpreter. "I did not come here necessarily expecting to win. But I did expect that I would be a strong competitor, and I'm very happy to have won."

The victory marked a triumphant return for the 37-year-old icon. At the 1992 Barcelona Games in 1992, Tulu became the first black African woman to win an Olympic gold medal when she surged ahead of Elana Meyer at the bell to win the 10,000m. She then invited the South African silver medalist to share her victory lap in a poignant show of post-apartheid camaraderie.

In the Addis Ababa stadium, Derartu's portrait hangs inside one of the five Olympic rings along with those of Abebe Bikila, Mamo Wolde, Miruts Yifter and Haile Gebrselassie as a triubute to the most revered of Ethiopian athletes.

In 2006, Tulu gave birth to her second daughter, Ruth, and regaining her competitive form afterward was a painstaking process she was unsure she would ever get through.

"It's been three years since I gave birth to my second child and during that time I struggled a great deal even to lose weight and to regain my endurance," Tulu said. "I had gained up to 18 kilos, and it took me a great deal of time to lose that weight. Though I had not had any good results during that time, I never stopped training."

But her results weren't that encouraging either. But a strong performance in the Philadelphia Half Marathon in September was a much-needed indicator that she was back on track.

"I ran in Madrid, Tokyo, and Nagano," Tulu said. "In two of them I finished in two hours and 36 minutes, and one of them in 2:34. So, when things like that happen, sometimes you start to give up hope, but you have to have patience. What gave me part of that motivation is I ran the Philadelphia Half Marathon. And for 21k, I ran 1 hour and 10 minutes, and that told me that I am okay, and I decided to run here."

Radcliffe also decided to run here despite tweaking an injury to her left leg during training two weeks ago. She said this latest injury was directly related to her compensating for an earlier hamstring injury she suffered while running the New York Half-Marathon in August.

"It's like synovitis, it's like where the fluid gets built up," Radcliffe said. "I had that treated with my doctor in Munich, and was really hopeful that it would settle down. I was able to train on the elliptical, but when I went around for 20 minutes, I got crepitus - it's like creaky stuff - and it came back afterwards. I got it treated again. This is all with homeopathic stuff, and that just didn't seem to be working. But it seemed to take it away a little bit. Then every time I ran it came back.

So coming out here I ran on Thursday, and it just came back again. So that's when we got the appointment to go and see the doctor here. He just had to put a tiny little bit of something stronger in there. Took it totally away, so I really thought it was going to be fine. I did some strides last night, felt good. Kind of thinking, okay, it's been a really, really rough two weeks, but it will be okay in the race."

But it was apparent from the start that something was not right with Radcliffe. Speculation before the race was that if she went out like she has in the past, she would be running by herself by the time she got to Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn.

When the starting cannon sounded at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island at 9 o'clock, 29 professional women took off up the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. By the time the runners reached the midway point up the bridge, the field was fractured into three groups. Two miles into the race, the lead pack was whittled down to seven runners.

But that was deceiving. The early pace was quite slow by Radcliffe's standards. The fastest mile split in the first six was a 5:41, about 20 seconds slower than the clip she ran at regularly during 2008. These splits were more like comfortable training runs for her, and kept her competitors in the race.

"Paula is someone with whom I have competed against a great many times," Tulu said. "I have beaten her on the track and cross country. But in the marathon, let alone to beat her, I have never even been able to run very far with her. The most I think I've been able to keep up with her is 10 to 15 kilometers."

Daunay agreed.

"The race started with Paula's rhythm which was maybe a bit slow at the beginning," she said. "But we all followed this rhythm."

The lead pack was so tight that at mile four, Salina Kosgei of Kenya, the Boston Marathon winner in April, got tripped up and fell down. In the process, she clipped Yuri Kano of Japan and caused her to face plant. Although Kosgei would recover, Kano never did.

"Really, we thought the race was going to be the first mile, because it's been bothering me uphill," Radcliffe said. "So that's why I didn't want to say too much (before the race), because if other people's legs could have gone (fast) in the first mile. I thought it was going to be fine but then (the pain) really kicked in. The 11th mile felt really painful across the Queensboro Bridge."

Because of her unorthodox bobbing style it was difficult to determine whether Radcliffe was indeed struggling. The first indication that something might be wrong came over the Queensboro Bridge when she slipped behind Daunay, Petrova and Tulu. When Radcliffe recovered on the descent, it was easy to shrug off what was happening as being a fleeting lapse.

"It was really sore when we came up the hill on the Queensboro Bridge," Radcliffe said. "Then I kind of got a drink and it seemed to just ease off a bit. On the flat it seemed to be bearable, so I was thinking just keep it moving. I knew that if I stopped that would be it. I wouldn't be able to get started again, so I wanted to just keep it going. And that pain there did kind of get bearable. Then it was just the whole leg started to shut down."

The women maintained status quo through 30 kilometers with Radcliffe, Daunay, Tulu and Petrova separated by inches and Kosgei not far behind. They managed to shake Kosgei on the approach to the Willis Avenue Bridge in the Bronx. At the 20-mile mark, Daunay and Radcliffe led Tulu and Petrova by a second and Kosgei by 16 seconds.

But as the runners made their way toward Central Park, Daunay and Petrova took the lead and Radcliffe fell eight feet behind into fourth place. Tulu turned back and voiced words of encouragement to Radcliffe, pointing to her to join the rest at the front, but the Britton grimaced and was unable to follow the leaders. At mile 24, she fell seven seconds behind the others and completely lost contact.

"I was disappointed to see her falling back and struggling," Tulu said. "I actually tried to encourage her to get her to keep up with us. At some point it was clear that she was not able to do so."

"She kept saying, ‘Come on, come on. We can do it, we can do it,'" Radcliffe said. "Even when the girls took off she kind of waited with me a bit. I think because it was a slower pace, I think she was pretty comfortable and knew that if she could close it back up that she was going to take that in the closing mile. But that's Derartu, she's always been like that."

Petrova and Tulu began to gap Daunay during the 25th mile. At the 40-kilometer mark, the two were five seconds ahead of Daunay and 12 ahead of Radcliffe. As Petrova visibly worked hard to try to shake Tulu, grimacing with every step, the Ethiopian matched each stride by the Russian in seemingly effortless fashion. But Tulu showcased her blistering track speed in Central Park when she blew by Petrova, the 2000 New York City Marathon winner, and continued to pull away at the end.

Over the final triumphant 400 yards, Tulu appeared to be running on air rather than asphalt. Meanwhile, Radcliffe labored to the line and almost collapsed as she crossed. She would have had it not been for Tulu and New York Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg offering their shoulders for her to lean on.

"I couldn't hardly pick up my leg," Radcliffe said. "I was just, obviously annoyed and disappointed because I kind of started the race to win it, and run the race to try to win it."

But this was to be Tulu's day to add to her legacy, and perhaps a prelude to another meeting with Radcliffe down the road.

"When I ran in Barcelona, I saw it like any other race," Tulu said. "I had trained, I competed and I won. I didn't have great expectations or worry a great deal about it beforehand. I wasn't that aware of the history of being the first Ethiopian or African woman, and I hadn't thought about any of those things. After that, however, I learned what place it had in history.

"Now that I'm much older, I'm 37 years old, I'm a mother of two, and I've also been out of the sport for some time, so to have been able to come back after all of that and to accomplish this tells me what it is possible to do at any age. If you work at it, if you're determined, you can be a good competitor. I am hoping not only to continue to do well here, but to also be back in London and to run there. And I hope to be able to bring another victory for my country."