Pregnant Paula Radcliffe to miss Euro championships (Roundup)

Jul 11, 2006, 15:31 GMT

London - Marathon world champion and world record holder Paula Radcliffe will miss the European championships next month because she is pregnant.

'I'll continue training at the same level but I definitely will not be doing the European championships. I'll be four months pregnant by then and do not want to take any risks,' Radcliffe said.

Despite missing the European championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, August 7-13, Radcliffe plans a quick return and will continue her career as planned until the London Olympics in 2012.

Radcliffe's baby is due on January 6.

The 32-year-old said she was aiming to be back for the world championships in Osaka in August 2007, but is undecided whether to run the marathon or 10,000m.

She has been sidelined all year with a foot injury, missing the London Marathon and the Commonwealth Games.

'I want to get back running as soon as possible. I know I'll miss it,' the Briton told Tuesday's edition of The Times.

Radcliffe said the baby would not change her career plans, with the 2008 and 2012 Olympics firmly on her agenda.

She said that having a family would be likely to make her even stronger.

'What has surprised me most is that people ask if I will carry on competing. This is especially surprising as I have said I want to carry on until 2012. And this news means it is more likely, rather than less likely, that I will do that,' she said.

'I will return more mature and with the wisdom that is part of being a mother,' she said.

Radcliffe cited the example of Norwegian Ingrid Christiansen, who won the Houston marathon when she was three months pregnant and ran a personal best 18 months after having her baby.

The most famous athletics mum is the late Fanny Blankers-Koen, otherwise known as 'The Flying Housewife,' a Dutch mother-of-two who won four gold medals at the 1948 Olympics.

Radcliffe won her first global title of any kind in the marathon at the 2005 worlds and holds the marathon world record at 2 hours 15 minutes 35 seconds.