Athens - A tearful Paul Radcliffe said on Monday she is still clueless about what caused her to collapse during the Olympic marathon - a race she had built her season around.
"I'm just devastated now. This is what it had all been about - preparing for this race. To run that badly - I just don't have a reason for that," the British athlete told reporters.
Radcliffe, the world record-holder and pre-race favourite, quit Sunday's race about six kilometres from the finish, bursting into tears then sitting on a curb and sobbing. Mizuki Noguchi of Japan went on to take the gold medal.
Radcliffe said she felt good in the early parts of the race and felt she would be able to keep up with the leaders, but as the race went on she began to suffer.
"I was going downhill and I felt like I was going uphill. I was on the side of the road and I was hitting the bumps ... I couldn't seem to get back to the middle of the road," she said.
"It wasn't like any part of me was hurting but all of me was, if that makes sense. I just felt like I couldn't keep going."
Radcliffe underwent medical tests on Monday and is still waiting for the results.
"I have never before felt I couldn't finish a race," Radcliffe added.
She refused to blame her performance on the blistering heat in Athens, or on the hilly route.
"Everybody had to compete in those conditions, and I had trained to cope with that ... I didn't finish the race dehydrated or in any distress from the heat."
Radcliffe's collapse was a big disappointment for the largely British crowd waiting at the finish line in Panathinaiko Stadium in central Athens - site of the original modern Olympics in 1896.
Fans stood in stunned silence as the giant television screen showed Radcliffe stopping, trying to start again, then stopping for good, her face contorted in agony. They never had the chance to wave the British flags that most of them carried.
"Last night I was just in shock, I was numb. I was almost unable to cry," Radcliffe said.
"I was in such shock and I just felt I had let everyone down. But nobody was hurting as much as I was."
She said she has yet to decide whether she would compete in the 10 000 metres on Friday.
"I desperately want to get out there and try and redeem something from all the work I've put in, but I'm not going to put myself into that arena if I'm not right."
