N.Z. cross-country standing plummets in mud, wind, rain

Press, 27 March 1979, Page 36

N.Z. cross-country standing plummets in mud, wind, rain

From

SELWYN PARKER

in Limerick, Ireland

A glum post mortem had already begun in the New Zealand camp after Sunday afternoon’s failure in the world cross-countin' championships on a soggy, mud-bound and wintry Limerick racecourse.

In a rapid fall from grace after victory in the men’s teams event in Morocco, in 1975, and a fifth place in Dusseldorf, in 1977, the best New Zealand top six could manage was a lowly thirteenth, behind such relative light-weight nations in cross-countrv running as Poland (seventh), Italy (tenth), and Holland (twelfth). Although the women salvaged something from a disastrous afternoon by finishing fifth in the teams event, with Anne Audain top placing in fourteenth, it all added up to a large and embarrassing dent in the justified national pride in its dis-j tance runners.

New Zealand’s individual performances also suffered as Norway’s great distance runner, Greta VVaitz, and Ireland’s John Treacy turned their respective races into virtual exhibition performances to take the great women’s and men’s championships for the second consecutive year — Treacy the first man to do so. The team captain and Olympic steeplechase finalist, Euan Robertson (Otago) was as expected, the first New Zealander home over the 12,000 m course, his seventeenth a disappointment after his individual sixth in 1977. But the real disaster for New Zealand was that he was the only one of his team to finish in the first 50.

Strung out behind him and burying any hopes of a high team placing came Auckland’s marathon runner Kevin Ryan (55), a fellow Aucklander. Howard Healey (58), Nelson’s John Dixon (87), Otago’s Allan Thurlow (111), Bruce Jones, of Auckland (133), Canterbury’s Martin Cauldwell (143). Wei-

lington’s Dan O’Connell (150), and the veteran Rotorua marathon runner. Jack Foster —at 46 — easily the oldest man in the race — at 155.

Malinowski, the silver medallist in the Olympic 3000 m steeplechase, was second, with the powerful Russian. Alender Alexander Antipov, confined to third by the Pole’s sprint finish.

New Zealand’s men’s team manager, Terry Baker, was naturally disappointed after the team’s performance but offered no excuses: “They never really got into the race in the conditions that applied — wet, cold and windy.”

i He warned that New Zealand will never again find good performances easy to come by in these championships. "The standard is phenomenally high and is going to get higher. We are going to have to realise that this will be a true world championship.” Robertson, who had been tipped by some as a winner in his fifth world championships said afterwards: “It was that mud. You get that mud and you can’t go forward and you can’t go back. You’re just stuck.”

In the w’omen’s race Anne Audain led New Zealand home for the second time — her fourteenth place well down on her ninth in Dusseldorf. She was followed in twentieth place by the team captain. Heather Thomson (Auckland), who after five world cross country championships will now retire. Canterbury’s Mary O’Connor — one of the women’s team novices — ran above her previous form to place i thirty-fourth, while Lorraine Moller (Waikato) — running I the final lap with only one

shoe — was close behind at thirty-ninth.

Barbara Moore (Auckland), was a disappointing fiftysixth with Anne Marie Keown sixty-fourth. The women’s captain, Thomson, said that the race was one of the hardest she had been in. The course cut up very quickly and it W'as freezing cold running into the wind and the rain. “We w’ould obviously have liked to do better but we all tried hard and we all passed people coming to the finish,” she said. The women’s team title was won by the United States ahead of the Soviet Union, England, West Germany. and New Zealand. In the men’s team event, New Zealand could have taken lessons in tactics from Australia who ran together as a team throughout to finish sixth — getting their six scoring runners home at twenty-ninth, thirtysecond, thirty-sixth, fortieth, forty-fifth and fifty-first. The team event was won by England, followed by Ireland 2, U.S.S.R. 3, West Germany 4, Belgium 5, Australia 6, Poland 7, United States 8, Spain 9, Italy 10, France (last year’s winners) 11, Holland 12, and New Zealand. For New Zealand it appears to be back to the drawing board.