Pavey's next race could now be in California

Pavey had been due to fly back to train in South Africa with husband and coach Gavin after finishing fourth in 32 minutes 21.19 seconds on Saturday.

But the 33-year-old Exeter runner said: "I need to have a quick rethink.

"There's a 10k at Stanford on 29 April and Gav and I have to think about now going to train in the USA to do that."

The Payton Jordan Invitational meeting in California is renowned for always hosting top-quality 10,000m races for both men and women.

Pavey had hoped to achieve the qualifying mark in Ferrara so that she could map out her summer track season.

But like everyone else in the field in Italy bar winner Elvan Abeylegesse of Turkey, she fell short of the 31:40 target.

Ethiopian-born Abeylegesse won in 31:25.15, well clear of Ukrainian Tetyana Holovchenko and Nathalie De Vos of Belgium while fourth-placed Pavey had no excuses for her disappointing time.

"I suddenly felt bad but whether it had been a three or five kilometres race, it would have made no difference," she said.

"Even after two laps I didn't feel good, but I didn't want to drop out. But 32:21 is not good enough - I'll have to try again."