“You’re either broke or you need the money,” Alan Minter, the world middleweight boxing champion, said when asked about the lure of the ill-fated comeback. Paula Radcliffe provides a third reason as she aims to prove that a 27-hour labour and 21-month sabbatical have not consigned her greatest hits to the past.

Radcliffe’s career has been a public experience, from the lows of that marital tiff in Edmonton, Canada, and tears on the kerbside in Athens to recording 2hr 15min 25sec to break the marathon world record in London. Her return to competitive action after almost two years out because of injury and motherhood is the talk of the Tyne and beyond. In the BUPA Great North Run in Newcastle on Sunday, she will be panning for gold as she heads for South Shields and Beijing.

Returning after childbirth should be no problem. It is nine months since Isla arrived and there are manifold precedents to suggest that Radcliffe will be as good as ever. Sonia O’Sullivan had her first child in July 1999 and was back racing that October, going on to win an Olympic silver medal at 5,000 metres the next year. That was positively apathetic by the standards set by Liz McColgan, who took part in a five kilometres road race in the United States a staggering six weeks after giving birth. Nine months later, she was the world 10,000 metres champion. “You feel really good because you’ve lost all that weight,” she said.

The difference with her predecessors is that Radcliffe’s absence has been extended by injuries either side of her pregnancy. Last year it was a foot problem that required surgery. This year she has suffered two child-birth-related stress fractures to her lower back, forcing her to admit: “I was trying to be clever and not do too much running, but I was doing cross-training and maybe I did too much.”

McColgan believes that Radcliffe will be ready and thinks that the break could benefit her. “Being away can help,” she said. “Before I had my time off, running had got like a mundane job, but I got my competitive streak back.”

Nevertheless, McColgan found her comeback a trial. “It was a shock to the system and it will be the same for Paula,” she said. “I thought I was doing OK in training and that everything was good, but then I came up against other people in a race situation and it was totally different.”

With Radcliffe not having raced since December 31, 2005, the temptation will surely be to flog her body. Dave Collins, the UK Athletics performance director, said that he would not be surprised to see a world-class display but added: “She is a star, so people expect miracles. There is a danger that everyone will put too much expectation on her. I hope she takes it steadily and I’m sure she will.”

Steady has never been the Radcliffe way. Five weeks after Isla’s arrival, Paula and her husband and coach, Gary Lough, moved to Boulder in the Rocky Mountains for altitude training. Since her setback she has been working at her usual base at Font Romeu in the French Pyrenees.

Nobody knows if she can be as good as ever and those yearning for an Olympic triumph have festering cause for concern. Since her golden year in 2002, when she shook up the marathon world, Radcliffe has competed in only two leading championships. The 2004 Athens Olympics was a disaster, blamed on antiinflammatory drugs taken for a leg injury, and the claustrophobic heat of Beijing next year will not benefit European runners.

A pregnant pause can have a positive payoff, though. Ingrid Kristiansen won the 1984 Houston marathon five months after the birth of her son, while Jana Rawlinson, the Australian hurdler who shared tips with Radcliffe after becoming pregnant at the same time, pointed out the benefits after winning in Sheffield in July. “I fed my son during the warm-up and was as relaxed as I’ve ever been,” she said. For Radcliffe, the weight is off and the wait almost over.