Newth puts N.Z. on the hoard

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 23

Newth puts N.Z. on the hoard

NZPA correspondent Moscow’

New Zealand’s sole Olympian to compete in the first week of the Moscow Games, modern pentathlete Brian Newth, was lying in twenty-third place — midway through the field — after the first of five gruelling days of competition c ’ Sunday, Newth, a 33-year-old Wellington van driver who never wavered in his determination to wear the silver fern in the troubleplagued Games, scored 1018 points from a maximum 1100 in the 800metre 18-jump horseriding event

He. still has fencing, shooting, swimming, and running to come, in the tough contest, designed

early this century to find' the Olympic movement’s greatest all-round sportsman.

Newth, riding a nine-year-old bay stallion called Plank which he had seen for the first time half an hour before his Olympic debut began, knocked dowm two bars from jumps at a cost of 60 points. He finished 10.6 seconds outside the allowable two minutes to give him his 1018 total.

Pentathlon experts reckon on at least 1000 points from the first event to give a competitor any chance of contending for the medals. Such a high placing might be too optimistic for I’twth to expect, but after Sunday’s result he knows that he is aiming for the top half of the 43-man field.

“It was not as good as I had hoped,” he said, “It’s important to have a good ride to start- with, but I’m not out of the hunt yet, and that’s the important thing. There’s a lot of competition still to come.”

Newth said that he did not realise he was riding so slowly, and could have sped up had be realised he was heading for time faults.

“But it’s knocking the bars down that costs the big points, not the time you take,” he said. Plank, one of 550 Russian horses trained and schooled for the pentathlon for the last 18 months, made a mess of the fourth jump and spilled a rail, and ■ then clipped the twelfth, sending a “brick” to the ground and costing another 30 points.

But Newth had no complaints about the horse, which he had taken over a preparatory six jumps immediately before the event.

“He was no problem,” he said. “All the horses were thoroughly tested first, and I had no difficulties with him.”

Newth figured beforehand on finishing about the middle of the field, but that looked an unlikely prospect after the morning session when 22 riders had completed their rounds. He was then fifteenth, and with the heavy ground slowly drying after overnight rain, it was expected that there would be more clear rounds late in the day than the five in the morning. In the event, however, there were none at all in

the afternoon, and the five morning leaders stayed in front. They were led by the Czech, Bohumil Starnovsky, who h ’ had the fastest of the clear rounds, seven seconds inside the permitted two minutes. The surprise of the day was the failure of the British team, the defending gold medallists in the team competition. The combined totals of their three riders gave them eleventh out of 12 places in the team series.

Danny Nightingale, the sole survivor of the British team which won in Montreal, -finished in fortieth place —6B points behind Newth. Poland, favourites for the team title, went into an early lead.