Paula Radcliffe is a British former marathon runner whose 2:15:25 at the 2003 London Marathon stood as the women's world record for 16 years. Born on December 17, 1973, in Davenham, Cheshire, she was coached by Alex Stanton from the age of 12 and won the world junior cross country title in Boston in 1992 while still a teenager.
She spent the 1990s as a track and cross country runner, finishing fourth in the 10,000 meters at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, before winning the world cross country long race in 2001 and 2002 and the world half marathon title in 2000, 2001 and 2003. Her 10,000-meter best of 30:01.09 came at the 2002 European Championships in Munich.
Her marathon debut at London in 2002 produced a 2:18:55 win. That autumn she ran 2:17:18 to win Chicago, then the fastest women's marathon ever run, and in April 2003 she lowered the record to 2:15:25 in London. She won London three times (2002, 2003, 2005), Chicago once and the New York City Marathon three times (2004, 2007, 2008), and took the world championship marathon gold in Helsinki in 2005 in 2:20:57. She competed at four Olympic Games without winning a medal, and her Athens 2004 marathon ended in a withdrawal.
Radcliffe retired after the 2015 London Marathon, where she finished in 2:36:55. She was appointed MBE in 2002 and OBE in 2026. She returned to the distance in 2025, running the Tokyo Marathon in 2:57:22 and Boston in 2:53:44. She lives in Monte Carlo with her husband, the former 1,500-meter runner Gary Lough, and their two children.