Scatter goes qualifying time

Press, 7 February 1986, Page 11

Scatter goes qualifying time

By ROD DEW In spite of blustery winds and lack of competition in the closing laps, Graham Scatter (Old Boys) bettered the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games standard for the 30km walk by 13s in a special attempt over a surveyed street course in Wainoni yesterday. His time of 2hr 21min 47s was slower than he had hoped for but more than smin faster than the previous fastest time recorded by a New Zealand walker in New Zealand.

“It was very pleasing to beat the standard, but I am very disappointed not to have beaten it by more. It was very windy. If conditions had been calm, I would have been two or three minutes faster — and that is a conservative estimate,” he said. Scatter has a personal best for the distance, set in England, of 2hr 16min. His training companion, Murray Day (Old Boys), who is also aiming for a place in the Games team, was forced out of the race at 23km by very bad stomach pains. Before then, he had looked like

qualifying. At the 15km mark, Day was some 20s ahead of Scatter and ahead of his schedule for a time of about 2hr 16s. Scatter caught him at 21km and at 22km they were walking together. “At that point, I thought ‘here we go’,” Seatter said. “Then, no sooner had we established ourselves together than Murray had pulled out. Suddenly finding myself on my own didn’t help much. I was the only person on the course.”

For the first 20km, Seatter was ahead of the

schedule he needed for his target time of 2hr 16min. He completed the first 10km in 45min 19s, and the second 10km in 45min 265. But as the race neared its end, he started to slip. Lap by lap his pace slowed. “I knew it was going to be close, so I couldn’t let up.” Although unable to do accurate calculations, he realised that a final lap of llmin would be too slow. He actually completed the lap in lOmin 535, the slowest of the journey but fast enough to give him a qualifying time and the New Zealand' fastest time, his third walking record in as many weeks. He described the wind as a real problem. “The hard part was coming up Wainoni Road,

probably a distance of about 400 m. Fifteen times I was confronted by this, and it made things very difficult,” he said. “That last lap was a pretty intense effort," said Seatter, who collapsed after crossing the finish. “It was 101 per cent effort. I was in quite a state at the finish.” Hours later, Seatter, a Christchurch schoolteacher, was still feeling “absolutely shattered.” He will wait until he has made a full recovery before deciding whether to make another

attempt on the qualifying time. He had hoped to break the qualifying time by such a large margin than the selectors would not seek two performances from him. Now he realises that a second qualifying time will be necessary. The New Zealand 30km championship is only four weeks and a half away, and there is some doubt whether he will be recovered enough to expect a fast time in this. However, it seems likely that both he -and Day will race in the championship, which will be held over the

same 2km block course used for the qualifying attempt yesterday. “This is not an event which you can attempt every week-end. You can only really consider two races a season." He expressed disappointment that there was not a New Zealand selector present yesterday to see just how difficult the conditions were. He was also critical of the refusal of the selectors to allow runners to go the distance with him, especially in view of the acceptance of women

runners qualifying in men’s races.

Seatter said that few people realised just how difficult it was to record fast time in New 1 Zealand, where winds and lack of competition were a real handicap. In England, he considers he would have no trouble walking a fast time and expects an old rival, Mike Parker, to produce a fast qualifying time any day. Parker, formerly from Otago, is currently living in England. “I am certain that I am in better form than I was when I recorded 2hr 16min,” he said. The official New Zealand 30km record, set on the track, is 2hr 31 mln. This, said Seatter, is another Indication of just how hard it is to do fast times in New Zealand.