JO PAVEY admits she won’t be celebrating with a curry and a pint this time around after being selected for a record FIVE Olympics.
Pavey, 42, finally got the 10,000m qualifying standard for next month’s Olympics when she finished fifth at the European Championships in Amsterdam last week.
The mum of two had faced a race against time after struggling with illness and a cancelled race earlier this season but last week’s performance was enough to persuade selectors to give her the nod on Wednesday over 24 year-old Kate Avery for the third discretionary spot alongside team-mates Jess Andrews and Beth Potter who had qualified automatically.
It means she will travel to Rio next month as the first British track athlete to compete at five Games with javelin star Tessa Sanderson notching up six.
She will also be the oldest British woman to run at a Games – a month short of her 43rd birthday in September.
And Pavey revealed that after qualifying for her first Olympics – Sydney 2000 – 16 years ago she celebrated at a Birmingham curry house.
She said: “In 2000 I qualified automatically at the Olympic trials in Birmingham. I remember having a pint of lager afterwards and then going for a curry in Birmingham.
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“I won’t be doing anything like that now! In some ways this feels better though than the first time I qualified because I never thought I would still be running now.
“I got the call from the selectors after a really hard track session on Tuesday night. I was pushing myself not knowing if I would be selected or not. I’m so excited.
“I never thought in my wildest dreams a few years back I would go to five Olympics.
“I remember in 2005 when London won the bid thinking what a shame, I’ll probably be too old to compete at London 2012, it’s come too late for my career. Now I’m heading for one more than that!
“I’m so fortunate and it’s always a massive honour to put on that British vest an an Olympic games. You look at the flame and stand on the start line and it’s very emotional.
“It’s also been an uncomfortable scenario for me because I’ve been very fortunate in my whole career that I’ve never been in the discretionary place position before, I’ve always been in one of the two automatic places. It feels strange that not all the girls can go because I know how hard everyone has worked to get a place at the Olympics.”
“Last week in Amsterdam I did wonder if that would be the last time I ran for Britain. I just knew I had to run well to make myself selectable but even when I got the qualifying time I knew there were still no guarantees. Now I want to give it my best.”
Pavey, who is coached by husband Gavin, became the oldest woman to win a European title when she won gold in Zurich two years ago at the age of 40, having given birth to daughter Emily 10 months earlier. Son Jacob is now six with Emily two.
But she said: “I don’t know yet whether the family will go out to Brazil with me or not. I haven’t had time to think and didn’t even know when the date of the 10,000m final was.
“I only usually look when I’ve guaranteed selection. I know it’s a morning final but then I’m used to getting up early having two young children!”
Also getting a surprise nod for the final 400m berth is Britain’s most decorated female athlete Christine Ohuruogu.
Despite being the Olympic 2008 champion, a silver medallist at London 2012 and world champion in 2008 and 2013 she has struggled to recover her form this season and had to pull out of the Olympic trials with a virus.
She faced a selection battle with team-mate Anyika Onuoru who beat her to European bronze last week but her wealth of experience made the difference in the end. Ohuruogu, 34, will now compete at her fourth Olympics.
One inclusion set to cause shockwaves is Andy Vernon in the 10,000m alongside defending Olympic champion Mo Farah.
When the two last raced against each other since last July, Vernon alleged Farah told him on the track to F*** O**. It followed a public spat which descended into a race row.
Vernon did not make the team for the World Championships in Beijing in August despite an appeal and hinted it because selectors did not want to upset the British distance star.
But performance director Neil Black insisted on Wednesday: “Mo and Andy are fine. They have put the challenges of the past behind them and are focusing on Rio.”
The 80-strong team also includes heptathlon star Jessica Ennis-Hill and long-jumper Greg Rutherford who along with Farah will bid to defend their Olympic crowns in Brazil.
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