First N.Z. medal missed by fraction of a second

Press, 22 July 1976, Page 14

First N.Z. medal missed by fraction of a second

Bv

GRAEME JENKINS, NZPA

l staff correspondent

Montreal

Had she had the benefit of m more international competition, New Zealand’s Rebecca Perrott would be wearing an Olympic bronze medal toda>. As it is she has the memory of being within 0.16 of a second of winning New Zealand’s first Olympic swimming medal since 1952 and only the third of all time.

With an Olympic reccord to her credit in the semi-final yesterday morning. Rebecca was drawn in the fourth lane —the top seed—for the final.

It was no real surprise to| New Zealanders who knew her recent form when she made the final but when the top American sports broad- j caster made his introductory! remarks on nationwide tele-] vision, he referred to the young Wellingtonian as *lhis< unknown girl from a small: country wav down in the* South Pacific we are hearing a lot about at these games": ft was a long dav of ten-: t’on for Rebecca Perrott. She bad not stent well but went*

out in the morning and, lowered the Olympic record to 4 min. 15.71 sec. The record lasted throughout the preliminary round, but it seemed obvious the time would be lowered even further in the final. To get a medal it was estimated she would have to swim at least a second faster than in the heat. As it was. she lowered her .time in the final by 0.95 of a second — to a New Zealand, allcomers record of 4 min.' 14.76 sec. j As is almost customary at ] these Games, the final was [won in world record time — and also as by custom in the women’s division, by an East. German Petra Thumer. who had I , second fastest world time to! ! her credit before the Games, I

.was swimming in an outside lane because she swam only to qualify in the heats. Her new world record time is 4 min. 9.89 sec., compared with the winning time of 4 min. 19.04 sec. in the event at the Munich Olympics. While Miss Thumer and the other two medal winners, Shirley Babashoff (U.S.A.) and Shannon Smith (Canada) have lavish training facilities at their command and the I,benefit of regular international competition, Rebecca Perrott has the Freyberg Pool in Wellington and an occasional visit to other parts of New Zealand or to Australia. While the women’s 400 .metres race was a thriller, i the real highlight of the night iwas what must be the greatnest long distance race of all , I time.

All three medal winners in the men’s 1500 metres, Brian Goodell (U.S.), Bobby Hackett (U.S.), and Stephen Holland (Australia) swam times under the world record, with Goodell’s new time a fabulous 15 min. 2.40 sec. Now the race will be on to find which of this talented trio will become the first to break 15 minutes — somewhat akin to the four minute mile on the track. Since 1972, the winning Olympic time has come down by more than 50 seconds. Another final swim in world record time was the men’s 100 metres breaststroke, with Americans taking the gold and silver medals and a Russian picking up the bronze. The gold medal winner was John Hencken. whose new time is 1 min. 3.11 sec.