Barely had Zhou Chunxiu crossed the finishing line of the Flora London Marathon on Sunday than the talk was of the Chinese record-holder facing a possible three-race showdown with the woman she wants to replace as World champion and World record holder.

For Zhou seems to be on a collision course to race Paula Radcliffe at the World Championships in Osaka later this year, in London next April and then, perhaps as a best-of-three decider, at the Beijing Olympics.

"It will be good to race against Radcliffe," Zhou said. "She is a very good athlete. I look up to her and would like to learn from her.

"I will try my best against her in Beijing, when I will be racing in my own country.

"Since Paula Radcliffe is the World record holder I will be aiming for this race. At the moment there is a still a distance between me and her, so I will try my best and learn from racing against her."

Radcliffe, at 33, is returning to training after having her first child in January, and has yet to decide whether to race the 10,000m in Osaka or to defend the marathon title that she won in Helsinki two years ago.

Zhou, at 28, possibly has time on her side, and while her 2:20:38 on Sunday was perhaps a mile slower than Radcliffe's world record, 2:15:25 set in London four years ago, the manner of her romp to victory - finishing full of running, despite the unhelpful high temperatures on the day - demonstrated that the Asian Games champion has plenty of scope to improve on her 2:19:51 best time.

"I don't know how fast I can go in the future. But I am aiming high," Zhou said.

"After this victory I will aim to get even better in the future. As a marathon runner you have to try and aim higher, but it is a challenging record. If I can, I would like to come again next year," Zhou said of London.

"As an athlete it's important to win every race. The London Marathon was a good opportunity to gain experience because I have not raced enough against world champion competitors.”

At her training base in Dalian, with the rest of the China women's marathon squad, she clocks up about 180 miles/300 kilometres each week. "You have to train hard to get a good result in anything in life. I have been training full time for five years now so I am used to it."

Steven Downes for the IAAF