Gordon Pirie still an outspoken athlete

Press, 9 May 1980, Page 20

Gordon Pirie still an outspoken athlete

From

KEN COATES

in Lon-

don

The Veteran Olympics to be staged in Christchurch next January, will be more devil-may-care and enjoyable than normal Olympics, according to Gordon Pirie, interviewed during a brief visit to Britain to promote the world veterans meeting. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Roger Malone recalled Pirie’s outstanding record as a middle-distance run-

ner, and says his personality is as “spiky” and intriguing as it was 25 years ago. Pirie says he is still fit — he has run 200,000 miles in the last 40 years — and lives, eats and breathes athletics. The interviewer recalls that during his long career in Britain as an athlete. Pirie did not always win, and was not always right in his outspoken comments. But he did win a lot of

races, and had a lot to say — some of it probably right. Pirie was asked whether British athletes should compete at the Moscow Olympics. “No. Athletes suffer from tunnel-vision, just as 1 did as a young man. They think the world revolves around their running and world records, rather than moral ethics.. “One day they will realise that it doesn’t,” Pirie said.

How do British athletes compare with those of your era? “Their times are better, and so they should be, because tracks and training facilities are better. “But facilities aren't everything, and youngsters can be spoiled by being spoon-fed. 1 started out with one pair of R.A.F. canvas shoes and a pair of P.T. shorts.” On the so-called “shamamateurs” Pirie said that amateurism had not exist-

ed at the top in his time and it certainly didn’t now. “I can recall one star getting £lOOO under the counter, but I didn’t because I was a mug — I just wanted to run. “I know of one runner who got £20,000 for a race last year, and another athlete on 5U525.000 a year as a retainer from a running shoe firm." Pirie said if he had his time again, he would not be less of a firebrand.

“I’m a ball of fire as a character, and you have to have that to win. Now I’m a coach in New Zealand, and I’m firing up my runners — coaching is 60 per cent psychological." After the interview. Pirie loped off into the distance on his daily running stint. What a pity, wrote the interviewer, that he seemed to be lost to British athletics and was producing winners for New Zealand.