Gruelling grind over

Press, 26 July 1980, Page 21

Gruelling grind over

NZPA correspondent Brian N’ewth’s five days of.' gurelling uphill grind against the world’s best modern ■ pentathletes came to an end at Moscow on Thursday. The 33-year-old Wellingtonian finished a creditable twenty-eighth in the punish- ' ing cross-country time trial over 4000 metres, in blazing 1 32-deg heat. It was the hottest, day of the Games and several of i the runners collapsed with exhaustion when they crossed the line. . N’ewth was so hot that he discarded his black New ] Zealand singlet three-qua-r- i ters, of the way around the anvil-shaped course in wooded countryside, and ran into the stadium wearing only : shorts and shoes. He earned

■ a reprimand for not displaying Ips number. But it made no difference to his time of 14min I.ls, which earned him 1042 points for the day and a tot;l of 4486 points for the five days, and an over-all place of fortieth. Anatoly Starostin, .of the Soviet Union, was the over-ail winner. •‘I was starting to cook — that’s why I took of the singlet” 'N’ewth said. '‘Some bloke complained, but it. made no difference.” The difference it did make was that without a number, he could not be identified and his time did not show on the electronic scoreboard. It was later announced as . 15m in 15s. which was obviously wrong, and subsequently corrected. N'ewth has regularly run

the 4000 m in the region of 13min 30s on a course at Trentham Memorial Park, in the Hutt .Valley, but he saidthat all the times at Moscow were slower because of the heat. ■ "Times . vary because courses vary,” he said, “but it was slower than average here today.” Even so, ■ Britain’s Danny ; Nightingale recorded a slash-1 ing 12min 55.6 s for the fastest time. An Italian, Pier Cristofori, also broke 13min. while 25 others . were under 14 min. “The good thing ' that could come out of all this is that more yoimg people in New Zealand might be attracted to the sport,” N’ewth said. “We’ll see if we can capitalise on the publicity I've had here.” ;