A fortnight after skating around the snowbound hills of the Great North Cross Country, Paula Radcliffe yesterday conquered the clinging mud of the Cross D'Italica in Seville to score another solid victory.
Radcliffe shook off an injury scare and displayed the same steely determination on a 6.6 km course saturated after almost a month of daily rain on the Spanish plain.
A little sparkle and quality competition was taken out of the race with the last-minute withdrawal of Gete Wami, the Olympic 10,000 metres silver and 5,000 metres bronze medallist. As happened for the British leg of the Energizer European CrossCup, the defending champion again failed to obtain a visa to enter Spain from Ethiopia.
Wami won last year's event and Radcliffe finished third - but Radcliffe was impressive and proved too strong for another highly fancied entrant, Ethiopian Fatuma Roba.
Her winning time brought her home 18 seconds clear of Yugoslavia's Oliveira Yevtic with Anja Smolders of Belgium paying the penalty for her fast start to finish third in 21 minutes 54 seconds.
"Apart from the last 100 metres to the finishing line, when I could hardly raise my legs out of the mud, it was a fairly easy run," said Radcliffe, who was only cleared to compete 48 hours before the race by her physiotherapist Gerard Hartmann.
She added: "It actually suited me not having to take on Wami. I injured my right rib cage last Wednesday and I could hardly turn my back. But I had immediate treatment and Gerard gave me the green light to take part.
"If Wami had been here of course I would have raced her. But you can only take on those who are in the field. Thankfully I felt no problems from my back."
English teenager Steve Ablitt won the junior men's 6.6 km race with an easy eight-second victory in a time of 21 minutes four seconds.
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