JO Pavey paid tribute to the 80,000 strong British crowd in the Olympic Stadium last night as thy roared her to a superb seventh place in the 10,000m.
The 38-year-old Bristol & West AC life member – the oldest runner in the field - smashed her personal best by almost 20 seconds with a time of 30mins 53.20secs to finish first non-African behind three Ethiopians, two Kenyans and the top runner from Burundi.
Furthermore Pavey’s time lifted her to second on the UK All-Time Rankings behind the great Paula Radcliffe (30:01.09).
“The crowd was awesome tonight,” said Pavey, whose home is now in Tiverton. “They were cheering me even when I over-took someone and the support was wonderful. I’ll never forget that evening.”
Pavey’s previous best in the 10,000m was 31:12.30 that she ran when finishing 12th in the Beijing Olympics final four years ago. She also finished runner-up (31:49.03) in the Europeans last month but before this season you have to go back five years for her previous high points at this gruelling distance when she came fourth (32:03.81) in the World Championships in Osaka and also fourth (32:21.19) in the European Cup in Italy.