Do we like them?

Do we like Paula Radcliffe?

Our score: 5 out of 10. Decent record and real good, but a long-held position on keeping trans women out of elite sport and one clumsy 2024 comment keep her mid-table.

Paula Radcliffe held the women's marathon world record for 16 years from 2003, with a time of 2:15:25. She is a four-time Olympian, and at 51 she went back to the roads to finish all six World Marathon Majors. In April 2025 she got the Six Star medal in Boston and said she was done with road racing.

The big stoush of her career was in 2015, when doping allegations over her blood data were aired after a parliamentary hearing. She denied cheating. In November 2015 the IAAF cleared her, saying she was accused on a gross misinterpretation of raw and incomplete data and should never have had to defend herself. She said she felt her reputation had been damaged.

Now the harm check. In 2019 she told the BBC that trans women were not currently a threat to female sport, but she asked whether the rules went far enough and called for calm, neutral research. Later that year she said that if athletes could simply identify how they feel and compete, it would be the death of women's sport. PinkNews noted she had previously called for trans athletes to be excluded from elite sport. Where you land depends on whether you read that as protecting women's categories or as shutting trans women out.

We found nothing from her on vaccines, migrants, race or election denial, and no sign of her working with grievance merchants. That is a thin record rather than a clean sheet, so it is a gap in what we found.

In July 2024 she was asked on LBC whether Steven van de Velde should compete at the Olympics. She said he had served his jail time and wished him the best of luck. After a backlash she said she was mortified that she hadn't condemned the rape out loud. The apology was quick, and on this one the reaction was to the way she put it.

On the good side, she has been an ambassador for the IAAF's clean air initiative since 2018 and works with Asthma UK, pushing for athletes to help raise awareness of air pollution. She said we need to act now. She also picked up an OBE for services to sport in the King's New Year Honours, announced in late December 2025.