PAULA RADCLIFFE has pleaded for the Olympic stadium in London to remain an athletics centre after 2012. At a time when her presence in the United States has encouraged mothers to take up running because of her example, Britain’s finest marathoner does not want the sport back home to lose one of its greatest legacies.

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said last week he would not worry if the showpiece stadium became a football venue once the Games ended. London 2012 has committed the venue to athletics, with a plan to reduce the 80,000-seat stadium to a capacity of 25,000, but Rogge has reopened the debate. “If the best solution is to transform the track into something else, then we would be in favour of that. We had the same situation in Atlanta, where the Olympic stadium was changed into a baseball stadium,” he said.

Radcliffe disagreed: “That would be a huge, huge mistake. How many Premiership football stadiums do we have and how many top-level athletics stadiums? If you want to build on the success that we will have in 2012 — their home country will inspire people to perform above themselves — you have to have a proper stadium. You have to have the memories of that stadium for people when they go out there and perform again.”

Today represents a landmark for Radcliffe in the countdown to 2012 when she runs a marathon for the first time since finishing 23rd in Beijing 11 weeks ago. She is seeking a third victory in New York, where her decision last year to cuddle her nine-month-old daughter, Isla, within seconds of her victory turned them both into poster girls for this event.

That gesture prompted many American mothers to start running and though Radcliffe knows how difficult it is to encourage future generations to take up athletics she does not want to see the 2012 opportunity wasted.

A running track in the Olympic arena could prove one of the stumbling blocks to a football club moving in. West Ham United and Leyton Orient, the nearest teams in east London, have been linked with the venue. Tottenham ruled it out two years ago, partly because of the track.

“Everywhere else manages to have football pitches inside the track,” Radcliffe said. “The Stade de France works. You could look back at Atlanta and say they knocked it down and made it into a baseball stadium, but look what track and field is like in the States. Do we want that to happen in the UK?

“We need to fight to get youngsters into athletics. Football is winning the battle already in terms of the media exposure, the profile of the players and the number of kids who gravitate towards football. We need to work against that. Having the big stadium will help, to get the chance to see people and to aspire to be down on the track.”

Radcliffe is favourite today. A week ago she was back to her dominant best when she controlled the Bupa Great South Run, spending eight of the 10 miles on her own in front. She has won all six of the city marathons she has raced since her debut at the distance in London in 2002.

The biggest threats to the world record-holder comes from Kenyan Catherine Ndereba, second in Beijing and a double world champion, the Ethiopian Gete Wami and American Kara Goucher, who is making her marathon debut and who beat Radcliffe in last year’s Bupa Great North Run. However, Radcliffe is free of injury and illness — a condition she has never enjoyed at the Olympics.

“I can’t let it destroy me,” the 34-year-old said of her disappointing performances in Athens and Beijing. Does she try too hard for the Olympics? “Maybe,” she conceded. “Every athlete does that. You try that little bit extra, but maybe as I am putting so much into it, to try that bit extra is what pushed it too much. People say, ‘How can you bounce back all the time?’ A lot of that is because I let things out and they are gone. It makes me look stupid. I have run 26.2 miles and emotions will come out. Sometimes I think, ‘Why couldn’t I do that interview without bursting into tears?’ But I am used to myself now.”