N.Z. not alone in cross-country failure

Press, 18 April 1979, Page 14

N.Z. not alone in cross-country failure

I com

SELWYN PARKER

in Dublin

Meredith Barth (North Canterbury) and Lyniey Jones and Sue Collins (Christchurch). All candidates required to have their B certificates and be aged between 17 and 21 years. The Inter-Pacific Rally, which is held every two years, last time hosted by New Zealand and this year by Australia in Perth, provides a wonderful opportunity for young pony club riders to travel and mix with riders from other countries.

New Zealand's performance at the world crosscountry championships provides proof, if it were needed, that nothing comes easily in international athletics.

Although the sight , of those distinctive black vests buried in the pack was a humbling one, a lot of other international reputations lost some of their gloss in this, the toughest of the world cross-country championships in nearly 80 years. Only one New Zealander, Euan Robertson, who was placed seventeenth, finished in the first 50. But then France, winner of the teams’ title in Glasgow last year, crashed to eleventh this

time. Only two of its team made the first 50.

Top athletes like Russia’s Alexander Fedotkin, one of Europe’s premier 5000 m. runners, struggled in forty-eighth. Italy’s Franco Fava, whose name was >vhispered as a prerace outsider, was twentyseventh.

“The standard,” said the New Zealand team manager, Terry Baker, “was phenomenally high.” His words were echoed, only slightly differently. by Australian team manager, an awe-struck Pat Clohes s y : “Unbelievably high,” lie said.

Even Belgium’s Leon Schots, chasing his fourteenth consecutive win, paid the penalty for

trying to stay the pace of the winner, John Treacy of Ireland. He finished a beaten fifth.

“It’s like the Olympics now,” said Baker. “Medals are very difficult to come by.”

To be fair, the conditions contributed to New Zealand’s disappointing performance. Before the race, after training over the Limerick paddock-like surface, the New Zealand team (and others) considered the course fair.

But steady overnight rain, coupled with the ground-churning effects of the junior and women’s

race beforehand, turned the going into what the racing writers call “heavy.”

Even Treacy, a confirmed mudlark, said at his post-race press conference: “I was surprised at how'.muddy it was.” At times, especially past the grandstand, the mud was almost ankle-deep. Robertson visibly slipped as he tried to accelerate past some competitors. Others ' were reduced almost to a plod. In these conditions a good start was essential, and here the New Zealand tactics were faulty. Only

the strongest runners in both the men’s and women’s races were able to improve from the back, most notably the thirdplaced Alexander Antipov, another competitor who revels in the heavy going.

In both races the first half-dozen places went to those who were among the top ten or so after the first 2300 m lap of the 12,000 m course.

In retrospect, said Heather Thomson, who finished twentieth, it may have been best "to have got out there and died.” It was especially in the performance of the women that manager Baker was most disappointed. “They were worth more in the

conditions,” he said. They were, however, fifth in the teams’ event behind . the United States, Russia, England and West Germany. It’s a sobering thought, however, that none in the New Zealand team, from which other countries have in the past taken their standards, gave any hintXof potential to match either the women’s winner, a 22-year-old, Greta Waitz of Norway, or the 21-year-old, Treacy, an ungainly but highly effective stylist who seems to be spearheading an Irish golden age in running.