Throw of silver

Press, 14 August 1978, Page 17

Throw of silver

“I was nearly out of my head. When you improve on , your best by more than I three metres it really is something.” That was the reaction of Mike O’Rourke (New Zealand), after he won the silver medal in the Commonwealth Games javelin yesterday. O’Rourke was a very satisfied man after gaining New Zealand’s second medal of the track and field competition. It was a much-needed medal for a New Zealand athletics team which had performed well but without rising to the heights necessary to make an impression at Commonwealth level. O’Rouke, a 23-year-old carpenter, did- not feel well in the early stages of the competition and it was only on his last throw, after four foul thrctws, that he got the big one of 83.18 m which lifted him back into second place. The gold medal went to the Commonwealth recordholder, Phil Olsen (Canada), a 21-year-old student com? peting in his home city. Olsen won the contest with a fine throw of 84m an his third attempt. Peter Yates (England) was third with 78.58 m.

O’Rourke led the contest d after his first throw of 75.30 m, but he was over- J taken, first by Olsen and J then by Yates. Entering the c last round, he had not man- J aged another legal throw. t But everything came right on his last attempt and the t spear sailed out to a silver- i medal distance. i The medals were later s presented by Mr Stan Lay, I who won the javelin title for < New Zealand in the first t Empire Games at Hamilton 50 years ago. ( The gold medal in the t shot went for the second t successive time to the giant t English policeman, Geoff r Capes. He achieved his win- t ning distance of 19.77 m on 1 his fourth attempt after two r foul throws. Bruno Pauletto f (Canada) was runner-up ( with 19.33 m. 1 Later, Capes had some strong words ta say about r East German athletes who t used anamoebic steroids to t improve their performance f in strength events. a “I have got strong feelings I about competing against any i East European country that t

does not test for steroids. I am seriously considering withdrawing from the European championships because there is no system of dope testing.” Capes, now 29, has achieved some notoriety at the Games by wearing a bright red T-shirt with the words “I hate everybody” on the front. But he was not joking about his threat to withdraw from the European championships. There was a pos? sibility, he said, that all English throwers would boycott the championships unless something was done. T w e n t y-year-old Keith Connor (England) won the triple jump with a good distance of 17.21 m, breaking both the Games and Commonwealth records. He started badly with a foul jump but recovered to achieve his winning distance on his fourth attempt. lan Campbell (Australia) was second with 16.93 m. Phil Wood (New Zealand), who was a medal hope after a winning performance in the pre-Games meeting, held fourth position for a time with his jump of 1.05 m. However, he was unable to improve on this and dropped to sixth.

F From ROD DEW in Edmonton