HAVE you noticed that everyone has turned into Paula Radcliffe this week.

While she has no idea why she couldn't carry on running the Olympic marathon, the rest of the nation seems to know exactly what was going on inside her mind and body just before she pulled out with four miles to go.

Strangely, however, the reasons given by television and press men, athletes and the watching public for her failure, vary wildly.

Some say she packed in only when she slipped out of the medal positions, therefore it must have been because she knew she wasn't going to get a medal.

Others give the counter claim that our Paula would never give up -- after all, she never has before -- and that she simply hit the wall and physically couldn't run another step.

There is the technical argument, offered by the president of her club among others, that she dehydrated herself by failing to drink anywhere near enough water to replace the copious amount she lost in sweat.

Then there are the amateur weather men who say she couldn't handle the heat of the day 100 degree conditions and that she would have won if the event had been held early in the morning as often happens.

And finally we have the idiots who say she let down the country down. Well, at least it gets them off Tim Henman's back for a few days.

If you are wise, you will not listen to any of these unfounded reasons but wait until Radcliffe works it out for herself -- with the help of medical test results and calm reflection -- and tells us herself, as she surely will.

For the moment we can only look at the facts. For some time before she pulled out she was losing ground on those in front of her and some of those behind -- very strange indeed for someone who was such a hot pre-race favourite and suggesting a problem with her running and not her character.

Then listen to one of the few clues she offered in her tearful television interview the following day.

She said she had nothing left in her legs. She said she was drifting from side to side and she did not believe her body could make it to the finishing line.

Those are the words of someone who pulled out, not because she wasn't going to get a medal, but because her exhausted body was no longer able to run.

But, what do I know. Unlike so many people, I don't know what was happening inside Radcliffe's mind and body.