Quax, Dixon disappointing

Press, 26 June 1978, Page 28

Quax, Dixon disappointing

NZPA staff correspondent London Kenya’s all-conquering Henry Rono waltzed away to an easy win over 5000 m at Crystal Palace yesterday, leaving New Zealand’s Dick Quax and Rod Dixon and the rest of the star-studded field straggled out behind him. Rono, with world records in the 10,000 m, 5000 m, and 3000 m steeplechase to his name this year, made nonsense of suggestions that too much running and travelling would rule him out of contention for the race. His winning time of 13min 20.78 s was well outside his

s t i 11-to-be-ratified world record of 13:08.4, but he i looked to have plenty of 1 ; speed left as he romped i r home metres ahead of fel- < low-Kenyan Wilson Waigwa ( 1 and Britain’s Nick Rose. 1 , Quax, running his first t race in several months, s , finished seventh while a bit- t . terly disappointed Dixon 1 1 pulled out of the race with < two laps to go. 1 ; The world 1500 m record- 1 . holder, Filbert Bayi (Tan- t ‘ zania) was fifth. 1 ’ Quax, who arrived in Lon- 1 ‘ don last week after nearly a ‘ > month of altitude training in * > Colorado, took over the ’ pace-making role after the 1 ‘ first 200 m and kept it for 1 almost half the race, with 1 Rono running just behind s s him for most of that time. 1

But when the Kenyan: moved past him at about i 2300 m and stepped up the pace, Quax gradually i dropped back, running at the I end more than 100 m behind Rono. i Dixon started comfortably, i settling into fourth place for i a while before dropping i back to about tenth early < on. Although for much of ] the race he was always i handy to the leaders, after i about 3000 m he began to lose touch with the front- ( runners, finally dropping out ( altogether, about 900 m from j the finish. j Afterwards he told the NZPA he had felt stale and I flat. “I can’t understand it,” he I said. “I’ve been doing about 1 240 km a week in training i

and my speed work has been going well. “But when I went to catch up and needed a bit of a kick, I was just dead.” Dixon will now revise his racing plans, opting out of a series of races in Scandinavia in which Quax and many of the Africans will compete as part of their preparation for the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton. Quax will run a mile in Oslo on Wednesday (N.Z. time) and may run another 5000 m in Helsinki later in the week. “I had hoped to do much better than that, even though it was my first race,” he said. “I was really having trouble with my breathing at the end.”