ATHLETICS: In terms of sport, it was probably the most harrowing 20 minutes of these Olympics. On yet another baking afternoon in Athens, Paula Radcliffe summoned the last vestiges of her customary bravery and volunteered to go and face the British media, never the most sensitive institution when it comes to dealing with damaged souls.

For all the redoubtable pluck and obstinacy she has called upon on the world's great track meetings over the last decade, it was a fragile and trembling figure that presented herself yesterday to try and explain the unexplainable.

History has demonstrated that London print tends to judge these catastrophic incidents of national implosion with precious little sentimentality. But so evident was Radcliffe's emotional burden that there was a hushed atmosphere in the bland and windowless room where she reflected, with watering eyes, on the nightmarish last miles of her marathon run across the burning and historic Greek course. Her breakdown three miles from the end of Sunday night's race is destined to become one of the iconic Olympic images.

It was uncomfortable being in the same room as Radcliffe sought to keep in check a deep and perhaps lasting sadness. And although her appearance was in keeping with the badge of honesty she has worn so publicly through her career, it might have been wiser to confess her demons to her loved ones for another few days instead of faltering in front of a thousand camera flashes. Twice she broke down in tears but refused the option of ending the interview, shielding her face with a paper handkerchief and saying, "give me a minute, give me a minute."

But the anatomy of the women's marathon that began in the celebrated town that gave the race its name will be something that preys upon the English conscience for years. In the most heartless manner possible, the night that was supposed to have been the coronation of Radcliffe's wonderful autumnal career as a marathon runner left her stripped of everything she believed to be absolute.

She did not win gold. She did not finish. She must have felt betrayed by the one discipline that permitted her to believe it would remain true to her chief attributes of bravery and persistence.

"As much as I can understand it, I felt good for the most part of the race. I felt good for the first few hills. I had stomach problems at around 15k but I seemed to come through those. I went through a bad time then when the two girls (Mizucki Noguchi and Catherine Ndereba) got away but I seemed to get a little bit better and got back into second. I felt that the gap wasn't so enormously big that I couldn't pull it back over the next 8k. I was still running downhill but felt I was running uphill. It wasn't any part of me that was hurting but all of my body. I just felt like I couldn't keep running."

It was pre-ordained that Radcliffe would enter the Panathinaiko Stadium with the light fading around Athens and a large home nations crowd celebrating like it was the Last Night of the Proms. England waited. Had the moment been realised it would arguably have succeeded Steve Redgrave's epic rowing feats as the most evocative of English sporting achievements. That thought was implicit in all the questions Radcliffe faced yesterday and it was obviously one of the considerations that she found overwhelming.

"I am totally devastated. I got to a stage in the middle of the race where I had nothing in my legs but my mind just did not want to let go. People kept shouting at me to get going again but I didn't know what to do. And then I didn't know what the protocol was for getting out of there. Last night I was just in shock. I was numb. I can probably cry more today. I just feel that I let everybody down but nobody was hurting inside more than me."

She vaguely entertained the idea of appearing in Friday night's 10,000 metres final but yesterday it seemed that another race so soon after this trauma was nothing short of a dangerous idea.

"I came here to run and win the marathon," she clarified. "It is hard to think right now. This is what it was all about and I am desperate to redeem something from all that work."

The results from a series of tests she underwent yesterday morning may reveal a physiological source to her distress; something she admitted would make the reality of these Olympics a little bit easier to accept.

But that will not alter the fact that her opportunity to seize a night of perpetual athletic greatness has passed her by, leaving her with the dubious consolation of the one public reaction that all great sports people fear: pity.

But that was the abiding sensation as she was escorted from the room yesterday afternoon. She will run many miles before she leaves behind her the terrible consequences of this, the most evocative and punishing marathon and the race she wanted the most.