This Mum Runs by Jo Pavey

Author:Jo Pavey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2016-07-14T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

I Wasn’t Doing It All Wrong After All

That 5,000m final is a race I find very difficult to dwell on. I watched it for the first time in November 2015 with Ben Bloom from the Sunday Telegraph. After the news broke of a state-led, systematic doping regime in Russia, Ben asked if he could come down to Devon so we could sit and discuss the race. I agreed to do it on the understanding that it would be used as an example of how a race can turn out for a clean athlete. I didn’t want an article implying ‘poor me’, as of course this situation had happened to other athletes too. I also knew it wasn’t the only time that it had happened to me.

At the time I saw my performance in that race as a failure, a chance missed to win a medal. I was in great shape going into that champs. Just a few weeks later, I ran a lifetime PB of 14:39 at a Golden League event in Brussels.

The race itself was relatively steady. I went to the front, working hard to break up the field. I wanted to try and up the pace, to attempt to take out some of the sting of any kickers at the end. I didn’t go crazy. I threw in a 2:56 km. This left just me and three others: Marta Domínguez of Spain, Liliya Shobukhova of Russia and Elvan Abeylegesse of Turkey. I was leading with that trio right behind me. I started putting in some 69-second laps to take some more out of their final kicks and then, in a flash, with 200 metres remaining, they struck and moved past me. Their freshness was phenomenal. They took all three podium places, leaving me coming down the home straight alone with all hopes of a medal snatched away. I had nothing to respond with.

I was very disappointed. I tried to rationalise it. In taking the lead, had I just taken the kick out of myself? Gav and I have always looked forwards. We had to discuss how on earth I could ever possibly compete with those performances. We had to write it off to a bad champs and didn’t look back at the race again. However, nine years on, watching the race with Ben and Gav was even more painful than I expected. I had run away from the rest of the field apart from these three – and who were these three? Domínguez, Abeylegesse and Shobukhova have never been found guilty of taking drugs at the time of the 2006 European 5,000m final, but that all three have subsequently been linked with doping offences is enough to make me realise that I hadn’t failed. Domínguez has been banned for three years for irregularities in her biological passport. Shobukhova was later banned for doping and, it has now emerged, allegedly bribed officials to avoid a ban. And Abeylegesse’s sample from the 2007 World Championships was re-tested in 2015 and found to contain a banned substance.

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