China's Zhou wins women's London Marathon

The world record-holder was watching on the internet from her training base in America's Rocky Mountains as next year's Olympic challenge became dramatically more difficult.

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Chunxiu Zhou's victory in London estabished her at the forefront of a credible Chinese threat on home soil at next year's Games in Beijing.

Never have the Chinese been a force in women's marathon running outside Asia. The last time a Chinese team were invited to London they did not even show up. None has finished on the podium in London's 26 years.

Zhou hardly looked likely to break the mould three years ago when she suffered almost as traumatically as Radcliffe at the Athens Olympics. She was 33rd.

"I have never heard of her," confessed Gete Wami, Radcliffe's former nemesis on track and cross country, who was second, 67 seconds behind her yesterday. Yet Zhou had hardly recovered

her breath, after finishing in 2hr 20min 38sec, when she warned: "I will try to beat Paula next year. I will be in my own country. That is a real motivation for me.

"Paula's amazing. I really look up to her. Her world record (2:15.25) is really high and hard to beat. But I am aiming to achieve it in 2008."

And if Radcliffe, taking a break following the birth of her daughter in January, chooses to return to the marathon at the World Championships in Osaka in August, Zhou confirmed she will be there as a challenger to the Briton's defence of her title.

Zhou, 28, denied there was any secret to her success, none of the turtle blood and caterpillar fungus that an infamous Chinese coach claimed was behind the brief success of Chinese women endurance runners in the Nineties. "It is all down to hard training," she said.

Wami's track record as a former world 10,000metres champion suggested she would win when the two women passed Billingsgate Market with a little over three miles to run. Instead, the foot that hit the accelerator pedal belonged to Zhou, who settled it by covering the next mile in only 5min 9sec. "I could do nothing," said Wami.

The best of the Britons was Mara Yamauchi, who was sixth ¡ª as last year ¡ª in 2:25.41. Her time might have been quicker had she not declined the offer of pacemakers and become a lonely, detached figure when her Japanese training partner, Kiyoko Shimahara, dropped out.

Yamauchi's reward is selection for this year's World Championships in the country where she lives with her Japanese husband. She will be joined probably by Liz Yelling, who finished eighth in a career best of 2:30.44, and possibly Radcliffe, who has yet to decide between 10,000m and marathon.

The men's race brought together the strongest field for a marathon since the 1984 Olympic Games, but a morning warmer than the April average took its toll. Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, the pre-race favourite with the bookmakers, stopped after 19 miles with stomach cramp, by which time Italy's Olympic champion Stefano Baldini and American former world record holder Khalid Khannouchi were casualties.

It seemed London might have its first non-African winner in five years when Californian debutant Ryan Hall led into the 23rd mile, but by the Embankment normality was restored with six Africans together.

Finally, in the last mile, the Kenyan Martin Lel, 28, exerted himself to outsprint Moroccan Abderrahim Goumri, another marathon debutant, and win by three seconds in 2:07.41. Hall was seventh in 2:08.2, the fastest debut ever by an American.

Runner-up last year and winner in 2005, Lel's triumph completed eight incredible days in which men born in his country have confirmed their utter domination by winning in big city marathons in Rotterdam, Boston, Turin, Paris and Nagano.

However, the biggest money winner yesterday was not running. Lel's victory means it is almost certain that another Kenyan, Robert Cheruiyot, a winner in Boston last Monday, cannot be caught for the $500,000 World Marathon Majors prize being offered by the big five marathons in London, New York, Chicago, Boston and Berlin.