When there is nothing on the television, Lisa Dobriskey turns to her boyfriend and says: “Shall we watch the video again?” As he sighs, she finds the tape and wonders just how she failed to win a medal in the Olympic 1,500 metres final in August. “I was so close and I'm still not over it,” she said. “Something like that can make or break a person.”

Dobriskey is tougher than many people may think. Criticised for her poor tactics when finishing fourth in Beijing, this year has been the last leg of an Olympic odyssey that started with her left foot turned inwards. “My mum made me wear shoes on the wrong feet to rectify it,” she said. “I still have not got the same movement in my left hip and, when I'm fatigued, my knee kinks in and collapses.”

If that is not a sufficient barrier to overcome, there is the anaemia she suffers from, not to mention the fractured left femur that went undetected throughout the 2006 season. She shuns the cinema for fear of catching germs and is a chocoholic, who rations herself to one cube a day. Nobody can accuse Dobriskey of having it easy.

Today she rounds off her season on the Newcastle quayside in the BUPA Great North Miles meeting, the tee-up to the Great North Run tomorrow. Her status as a star in the making is assured after going from 200-1 no-hoper for the Olympic title in January to third-fastest qualifier for the final. In July, she took almost six seconds off her personal best, went fifth on the UK all-time list and raised hopes that she may be the new Kelly Holmes.

“I look back to the Olympics and I have to be disappointed, but if you'd offered me that at the start of the year, I'd have taken it,” she said. “I made a slight error, but if I'd got third it would have been perfect.”

Was self-doubt the downfall? “No,” she said. “I just don't talk the talk. I remember saying to myself, 'This is the Olympic final', something I'd dreamt about since I was 11, and then tried to stop thinking too hard. It was flashing by. I've gone over it so many times, but I can never change the ending. I don't ever want to come fourth again.”

At 24, she is ten years younger than Holmes was when she emerged from her own nightmares to win double Olympic gold. Dobriskey believes that she will get better as her improvement nets invitations to leading meetings. In July, having been overlooked for the Golden League meeting in Paris, she took a mixed-sex race in Manchester and ran 4min 0.64sec, a time that Holmes surpassed only twice. “I want to dip under four minutes next season and I need to be racing in better races,” she said.

After winning the Commonwealth title in Melbourne in March 2006, she ran that summer with a stress fracture. “We kind of knew it was there, but thought there was nothing to lose by going to the European Championships,” Dobriskey said. She didn't make the final.

Last year, she lost a shoe at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan, and went out in the semi-finals. Her anaemia was a burden, too. “I had a lot of blood tests and they found I had iron deficiency,” she said. “It means I eat a lot of red meat, but I have to be careful about how I combine my foods.”

She has waded through these woes with her distinctive step. Four years ago, she watched Holmes enjoy her Olympic catharsis while on a Greek campsite. Her boyfriend, Ricky Soos, was competing for Great Britain in the 800 metres in Athens, but the dynamic of that relationship has switched.

Her elevation is partly down to the suspension of several Russian middle-distance runners for drug offences in August. Dobriskey had long had suspicions. “It was just a bit unbelievable that there would be so many of them running fantastic times every week,” she said. “I looked at someone like Yelena Soboleva and she's obviously got talent. I wanted to be like that and then you find out they're cheating. It's put a shadow over the 1,500 metres.”

Dobriskey, though, is stepping out of that shadow. Her season has one mile left before she eyes bigger prizes and a tape with a happier conclusion.

Jo Pavey targets Great North Run success

There is no Paula Radcliffe on the comeback trail this year, but two women with an eye on her achievements will be duelling for the title in the BUPA Great North Run tomorrow. In one corner is Jo Pavey, Britain's leading distance runner on the track, who is preparing to follow in Radcliffe's footsteps and move up to the marathon, while in the other is Gete Wami, the Ethiopian gunning for revenge against Radcliffe in the New York City Marathon next month.

It is tribute to Brendan Foster's vision that the Great North Run attracts about 52,000 people and, while it will contain its usual celebration of human interest stories, it is the elite battle that promises to be most interesting. Pavey is 35 and, although a Commonwealth bronze medal-winner at 5,000 metres, is better known for near-misses. The marathon may provide a happier hunting ground and racing over the half-distance to South Shields will give her an indication of whether she is ready to compete in London in April.

Two years ago, Pavey was fourth in her first Great North Run, when high blood sugar levels caused her to black out with 800 metres to go. The problems endured in Beijing, where she had a stomach complaint and finished twelfth in the 10,000 metres, despite setting a personal best.

A stomach for the fight will be required against Wami, who clinched the World Marathon Majors series title last year despite losing to Radcliffe in a dramatic finish in New York after the Briton had ended a 21-month layoff by finishing second in the Great North Run.