Sports features

Press, 30 August 1980, Page 24

Sports features

By

JOHN COLLINS

The size and content of the fields in modem mile races has come under fire from George Stroller, the former world record-hold-er now being treated in Granny Smith’s Hospital, London, for at< overdose of vitamin C. Stroller, who yesterday thrust h i<: way 19 yards clear of the crowd at the Glass Menagerie stadium to wat:h the British middle-distance runner, Steve Overt, win the longawaited “Mile of the Mi'unnium” in record time, has told athletics promoters that only the presence of other competitors in certain races was preventing his winning by a walk-oven.

The persistent Stroller told PANZ. “I know it is important for promoters to attract the crowns by offering them as many top runners as possible; but it is going a bit far to. in-

elude people who run faster than me. If this hadn’t been done, I know I could have won. It was my kind of race.’’

He had been boxed in, spiked, jostled, elbowed, pushed, and deeply concerned about Afghanistan while filming o range-jume advertisements before the race. “It can’t be good for vou.” he said.

“The crowding was the worst I have experienced. I had to share a’dressing room. There was no star over the door. I was hacked and tripped in makeup. It is clear they were out to get me. I am not normally one to complain, but the lights at the cheque signing were disorientating. The mean barometric pressure at sea level was all wrong for one of my skin colouring and sun sign.” Stroller laid at the door of “promoters who think

of athletics as a way of making money” responsibility for his being found, an inert bundle of sequins in the foetal position, at the mouth of the tunnel leading to the track just before the race. “Why else was the re-

lative humidity in the dressing room only twothirds of that recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organisation for growing maize,” he asked. “My jockstrap crumbled like so much withered papyrus. No-one could have gone on under those circumstances. “I have never known my shorts to set up so much distracting static. My dresser had clipped many of my fingernails into intriguing and unfa-

miliar geometric patterns, possibly signals to ancient astronauts. Though 1. do not normally wear spectacles during a race, it was clear that any 1 might suddenly decide to wear would be distracting, given that I am not as

used to them as spectacles wearers are, even though, as it turned out, 1 didn’t wear spectacles. But my point stands. all the same,” said Stroller. Asked to outline the lost time between his leaving the . dressing room “in a preternaturally distressed state” and the end of the' “Mile of the Milennium,” which Overt won by 200 metres, he told PANZ: “The futures market had opened on a bullish note. I

was disorientated because my parting was showing signs of bifurcation twothirds of the way between forehead and crown. The venturi effect in the tunnel was exerting unseasonal pressure on the delicate and vulnerable tissues of my waistband. As I tried to break clear of the crowd in the tunnel, steelhard feet, many of them of an unseen and possibly extraterrestrial nature, tore at my young flesh with cold precision, 1 imagine. “I was hacked and boxed in by programme sellers, many of them unknown to me. It was a nightmare. When I caught a glimpse of the other runners waiting out on the track, I knew it was my kind of race, but claustrophobia hit me like scurvy. It was a set-up. I have been robbed. Where am I?

My nose itched. It’s a disgrace.” Commenting on Overt’s performance. Stroller said: “It makes my point far better than mere words. You could see from his demeanour after he won that he was finished. It was all over. It was my kind of race. He just didn’t have anything left. -It was the Olympics all over again. If I had been in the race, I would have pounced. It was made lot me.

“Ear wax sometimes makes it hard for me to catch what outspoken < companions say :n speeding Porsches. Some Paciiic tortoises live to an age of 200 years or more, t am proud, of course, knowing that I would have won if I had run. Proud, and not a little humble. What a pathetic win. Next time I shall lace my shoes diagonally.”