Paula Radcliffe is set to turn down £500,000 from the New York City marathon to follow instead in the footsteps of David Beckham by travelling to Japan.
The Bedford runner reaffirmed her status as the world's best female athlete when she won the International Association of Athletics Federations world half-marathon title here on Saturday, roared on by hundreds of British tourists watching the race held on a six-lap course around the marina.
This was her third victory in the event and completed an unparalleled 12-month period during which she has raced seven times, won on every occasion and set five world records.
As a result Radcliffe is the biggest attraction in athletics at the moment and New York are desperate for her to run in their race on November 2.
Radcliffe has made New York turn its usual philosophy on its head. Its race director Allan Steinfeld once said that "New York doesn't need stars, it makes stars." But with a new multi-million-dollar title sponsor he is now prepared to do everything possible to get Radcliffe on the start line. "They have offered her shedloads of money," said one industry insider.
Unusually for a foreign athlete, Radcliffe is widely known in the US following her world record in the Chicago marathon last year, a performance that led to an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show.
After claiming the sixth world title of her career, how ever, Radcliffe admitted that a marathon was "not looking likely at the moment". She said that, after a brief break, she would represent Britain for nothing in an Ekiden in Chiba on November 23.
Ekiden races are road relays held over the 26.2-mile marathon course and are hugely popular in Japan, where they regularly receive live nationwide television coverage.
She could come under more pressure there than anywhere because the Japanese are marathon-mad and the country's biggest sports star is Naoko Takahashi, the winner of the marathon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the first woman to break 2 hours 20 minutes for the distance.
Takahashi appears in television commercials and even features in her own comic strip. All her races are broadcast live on television, as is becoming the norm for Radcliffe.
After a period out due to injury, Takahashi is training hard for the defence of her title but has identified Radcliffe as her main obstacle to being successful.
Radcliffe conceded after this latest triumph that she would prefer to run the marathon at the Athens Olympics next year, rather than the 10,000m, but much depended on how well her training went.
The Briton underlined her dominance in this event with a comfortable 87-second victory over Berhane Adere, the Ethiopian defending champion and winner of the 10,000m gold at the world championships in May, in the absence of the Briton through injury and illness.
It was the biggest winning margin in the 12-year history of this event and was probably a better measure of how well Radcliffe ran than the time, which at 67min 35sec was outside the world record.
"I came here in good shape for a record but it was the wrong time of day," said Radcliffe, winner in 2000 and 2001. "There was too much direct sun and the course had too many twists and turns. I realised after 10 kilometres that today no records were possible so I slowed down."
