Briton Paula Radcliffe shattered her own world record this morning, scorching to victory in the women's race at the London Marathon for the second year in succession.
Her winning time was clocked officially at an astounding two hours 15 minutes 25 seconds. In ideal conditions, Radcliffe (29) made all the running to demolish her own record of 2:17:18 set in the Chicago Marathon on October 13th last year.
She led by a minute at halfway when she was almost three minutes ahead of her time in 2002 and at the finish came home four and half minutes clear of Kenya's Catherine Ndereba.
Athletics officials had allowed the use of male pacemakers in the women's race which had made a world record even more likely for Radcliffe, running at the peak of her powers.