Sport 24-08-2004 Golden Kelly Lifts The Nation who: British Olympic athlete Kelly Holmes what: Wins 800m gold medal where: Athens, Greece when: Last night snippet: "It was the race of her life and the night the dream came true," beams The Mirror: "Olympic gold for Kelly Holmes after a roller-coaster 10 years at the top of British athletics." Five hours after Paula Radcliffe broke down in tears trying to explain her marathon failure to BBC viewers, Kelly Holmes "wept with joy as she won a gold medal in the 800 metres after taking the lead in the last 10 metres," adds The Independent. Not until last Wednesday did Holmes announce that she would run the two-lap race, notes The Times, "having insisted in the days before that she was not being secretive but was in genuine anguish over whether to line up for it." Her concern was that, by running a heat, semi-final and final of an 800 metres championship, "she would leave herself fatigued for the metric mile. Now she goes into it running on air." The look on Holmes` face as she crossed the line "was one of pure amazement," says The Telegraph: "There she was seizing Britain`s first middle-distance gold medal in 20 years, since Sebastian Coe ruled Los Angeles and she simply could not believe it." "When I crossed the line, I could not believe it," she confirmed afterwards. "I wanted it for so long, and I`ve dreamt about it so much... I really needed the confirmation from the others to accept that I`d won." "I decided to take the risk of running in both events, but my training was going so well that I was just waiting for something to go wrong," Holmes tells The Guardian. "I never gave up, because I believed that eventually I could get a title if I had one good injury-free year. It`s a dream come true." [... more]

What The Papers Say is delivered to thousands of readers every morning by web, WAP and email. Sign up today!