THERE'S no doubt where my sporting Oscar goes this week. Becks would be among the nominations, but after so many glorious failures the winner has to be Paula Radcliffe.

There's probably more meat on a butcher's pencil than on Paula, but what heart she has.

It was a classic case of mud, sweat and cheers as she refused to accept her usual fate of being overhauled in a sprint finish and fought back to win the world cross-country title in Ostend.

Ethiopia had won six of the seven previous titles, but perhaps the Belgian bog took the sting out of Gete Wami's finish, leaving Paula just a flicker of hope, which was as much as she needed to force herself back in front.

Her failure to win a medal at Sydney, finishing fourth in the 10,000 metres after leading for 24 of the 25 laps, was the most agonising moment of the Olympics.

It seemed to sum up her career, and lesser mortals would have thrown in the towel in despair. But a few months later she's on top of the world, and deservedly so.

PAULA must have known she had arrived among the sporting greats when she was invited to appear on John Inverdale's programme, On Side, on Monday night.

It was unfortunate that she trailed in last, behind the illustrious trio of Bobby Robson, Nasser Hussain and Jonny Wilkinson. But perhaps she was lucky that the show didn't include Brian Clough, as advertised, as nobody else would have got a word in.

It was left to Robson to steal the show, although Inverdale was slow to warm him up and twice interrupted just when he was getting really interesting.

It's a huge credit to Robson that he's still prepared to light up a show like this with his cheerful and passionate personality, despite what goes on at Newcastle.

A man of his years and reputation doesn't have to put up with the sort of nonsense Douglas Hall came out with last week about the club being a bigger club than Barcelona and Rivaldo being a potential signing.

Robson conceded to Inverdale that it was possible Alan Shearer could take over as manager, but he wanted three more years as a player out of him first.

This was what we wanted to hear, but this was the point at which Hussain was introduced to play a largely dead bat to questions about cheating.

Robson, bless him, wasn't having this.

"Value the game above the prize, I was taught," he said. And while his love of the game might keep him at Newcastle past his 70th birthday, he also left no doubt that he passionately wants to end his career by bringing a piece of silverware to St James'.

It's to be hoped he's given the right support to halt the current decline, which is making the natives extremely restless and prompting counter-productive ramblings from Douglas Hall.

CLASHING blades, a restart - what drama in the Boat Race. Or not. This event must be the biggest anachronism in British sport in terms of the publicity it is given in relation to the interest it creates.

Some of the Sunday newspapers gave it more column inches than Paula Radcliffe, which was an even bigger mystery than how Graeme Hick got into England's one-day team ahead of Nick Knight.

Still, the Boat Race amazingly turned out to be not quite the lowlight of the sporting week. I give that honour to the first half of England's match in Tirana.

After all the pre-match publicity about the poverty in Albania, it was impossible not to sympathise with fans who had shelled out a month's earnings to watch such dreary dross.

Rarely have I been so bored since the night someone persuaded me to venture into Hamsterley Forest to watch the RAC Rally.

Thank goodness Owen and Scholes finally brought the game to life. There were certainly some merry old souls in England's ranks when goal king Cole finally broke his international duck, but the celebrations were swiftly halted for the other A Cole in the team.

Poor old Ashley's debut will be best remembered for being poleaxed by a lipstick holder. Requests to kiss him better might have been more appropriate than David Davies trying to turn it into an international incident.

In the astonishing euphoria surrounding the Cole goal it was forgotten that the score could easily have been 2-2 as a result of England's uncanny ability to turn attack into laughably sloppy defence.

Still, if they can play badly and win perhaps it's a sign that Sven's magic wand is beginning to sprinkle them with gold dust. Or is it Cole dust?