John Dean s early promise was unfulfilled

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33693, 16 November 1974, Page 4

John Dean s early promise was unfulfilled

(By

R. M. CAIRNS)

With the retirement of John Dean, New Zealand cycling has seen the last of a rider with vast natural talents and physique who failed to leave behind, as he should have, a reputation to go with them.

When he was in the boys’ and junior grades, Dean had the world at his feet: much bigger than the average boy his age, he had won practically every New Zealand title in those categories. But since 1967, the year he first competed as a senior — when the “age of change” was 19, not 18 as it is now — Dean only occasionally dominated New Zealand fields as one felt he should have. Perhaps more to the point, he was often a grim failure on the international field; and in the supreme “local” test of a road cyclist’s stature, the Dulux six-day tour, Dean did not earn a high pass mark. This is not to say Dean was a failure. The 20 national titles he won on road and hard track, and the handful he picked up in grass track racing, make him the second most successful cyclist at national championships. Only the incredible Warren Johnston, who won 23 hard track titles — including the sprint eight times in nine years — and 15 on the grass track is ahead of Dean.

From that time, he became a much less dominant figure in New Zealand cycling; he found the successes much harder to achieve, and he perhaps lacked the instinct for hard work and the killer attitude.

Perhaps, too, Dean’s mental approach took a more severe battering at the Mexico Olympics than he could cope with. He went to the Games as undeniably New Zealand’s best all-round cyclist: he had won the road championship late in 1967, easily; completely dominated the hard track championships in 1968, winning every event he contested; and won the Olympic road trial at Waikari as well as being a strongman in the 100 km team time trial. In the 100 km team time trial, Dean was dropped before quarter-way, and that is a dreadful fate for any team. He did not finish the road race, and from being No. 1 in the team which left New Zealand, he returned as No. 4, supplanted by the equally youthful B. W. Beeston, who was only fifth choice. Dean’s career was never quite the same. He went to

Europe with Beeston in 1969, but soon returned home. He made no attempt to win a place to Edinburgh in 1970, and his only performance of note in 1971 was winning the m a d i so n championship with H. D. Kent, a hollow victory in the absence of worthy opposition. Even when he won two titles at the velodrome in 1972, Dean did not look back to grips with the sport.

His kilometre time trial victory was in the absence of the champion, Kent. And Dean’s sprint championship victory against R. E. Knight was questionable; he made illegal use of the off-track area, but it went unnoticed. But Dean still won a place in the 4000 m pursuit team for the Munich Olympics — ironically, it was the only event in which he had not won a New Zealand title, though he wa>s to do so the next year.

That Munich team failed, however, and Dean did look at the end of his tether at the championships which followed, at Kew Bowl, Invercargill, more than a year and a half ago.

That track had been the scene of Dean’s finest track form, in 1968, but although he won the kilometre again, he was a failure. The Wellington pursuit team beat Canterbury in the final, but Dean was dropped by that time; he was a distant fourth in the sprints. It seemed Dean was out of contention for the Christchurch Commonwealth Games, but with rare determination — and a charmed run — he won the 10 miles at the national championships a year ago, and was given a place on that single performance. At the Games themselves, there was no question that Dean was not in the right condition; had he been anywhere near as fit as often in the past, he would surely have stayed with the Englishman, Stephen Heffernan, in his long break, and taken the silver medal at least. He wasn’t, and didn’t.

It seemed New Zealand cycling, and its selectors, would have learnt their lesson: that sending Dean away again was no move for the future. But when he won a world championships trial this winter, they dutifully eent him off to I Montreal where, pre- i dictably, he did not even| finish. All this may sound a harsh summary of a very successful cyclist. More to the point, it reflects the difficulties facing an athlete who achieves early and spectacular results because of his physique. This Dean did, and it may stand as an indictment of the West Coast-j North Island centre — Dean was originally from: New Plymouth — that it| tries too hard to make! stars of its youngsters. Perhaps the holding of boys’ championships, for all the incentives they offer, are to blame as well, because none of the other four greatest medal-win-ners of hard track and road shone in the under-16 category. Johnston, Dalton and Les Lock, because they were born too soon, Stockwell , because he was a later developer. All except Lock had demonstrably better results and Lock had a more sustained career. The pity of it all was that John Dean was just too good as a boy, then as a junior. He had his failures there, too, but these could be put down to a lack of judgment: the road championship of 1965, the pursuit title of 1966 are examples. Otherwise, he was very nearly unbeatable, and all expected him to win any championship he tackled.

Dean, possibly, believed he could as well, and the harsh realities of life as a, senior were overpowering. Let him not, then, be remembered as a great New Zealand cyclist; rath--er, as a very good one who could have been better.