Paula Radcliffe brilliantly bounced back from the nightmare of Athens to win today's New York City Marathon.
The 30-year-old produced an unofficial winning time of two hours 23 minutes seven seconds to clinch a thrilling victory ahead of Kenya's Susan Chepkemei.
The world record-holder was made to fight every inch of the way particularly with some telling bursts in the final two miles before beating off the challenge of the runner-up three years ago.
It was a triumph for Radcliffe who dropped out of both the marathon and 10,000metres at the Olympic Games.
The pair were locked together in the final stages of what will be remembered as a truly great race. But Radcliffe finally assured herself of victory with a superb sprint over the final 400m as they came within sight of the finishing line.
Nothing - apart from winning a gold medal at the Beijing Games in four years -will ever atone for the disappointment of Athens.
But exactly 11 weeks to the day when Radcliffe, the pre-race favourite, dropped out with four miles of the Olympic marathon remaining, she hit back with a fantastic victory.
South Africa's Hendrik Ramaala won the men's title in an unofficial time of 2hr 9min 24sec. Ramaala became only the second South African to win the New York race, following Willie Mtolo in 1992.
American Meb Keflezighi, who was born in Eritrea but became a United States citizen in 1998, was second in 2:09:52 with Kenyan Timothy Cherigat third. It was the worst Kenyan showing since Joseph Kamau settled for third in 1996.
