Fowler: strongman now sprinter

Press, 28 March 1981, Page 22

Fowler: strongman now sprinter

BRIAN FOWLER

went to Levin “to win

the points race and to do a good time in the team, pursuit” in the Healing national hard track cycling championships. In the last of a series, RAY CAIRNS talks to the young man who did even more.

That Brian Fowler should reach the final four of a track sprint series, let alone with the silver medal, was a source of amazement to Canterbury cycling folk. Not just those far from the action had this sensation; it was a little unbelievable on trackside at Levin, too.’ But it is a measure of the equanimity of young Fowler that he will not confess, even now, to a feeling of even the merest surprise at his most surprising result in the Healing championships. Instead, he quite clinically explained and evaluated his attitude to the shortest, but sometimes slowest, event of a track programme. “I don’t think much of sprinting at the best of times, and I don’t like those three-up races they have now; someone who’s not so good can get in your way, and that happened once to me.

“I even asked Wayne (Thorpe, the Canterbury coach) early in the sprints if I should keep going, and he said — and I already thought so, too — that I should. It helps sometimes to ride everything, you know, but a lot of guys seem a bit scared of taking on a big programme — like David Dixon, for example.

“But I think there’s no point in riding just one event until you’re very very good at it; then is the time to concentrate on it.”

So Fowler, the all-rounder now, found himself riding, for a gold medal in the sprints, but not getting past the second round of the individual pursuits in which he was expected to perform better. He was fourth a year before, and rode the sprints “only as a warm-up for the individual pursuit. I was thinking I could get into the last four again, but I didn’t know the times of the other guys, apart from Craig (Adair). “So I found myself riding my best time, but only being

seventh qualifier. I was pleased with the time, and I would have been even more pleased if the matching — second fastest qualifier against second slowest — had stayed with my riding Craig; I could have given him an easier ride.” So Fowler’s attitude had to change towards the sprint, though not instantly. “I didn’t think of a medal until I beat Blenddyn Wills, and they were dose, but I was really more interested in seeing how far I could go, looking at a high seeding next year.” Now Fowler will be the top seed — and draw the easier early rides — with Shane Smith, his team-mate and vanquisher at Levin, next year becoming a senior. “I ride for enjoyment” is .Fowler’s maxim, while acknowledging that success makes the enjoyment greater, and he was not slow to express greater delight in the gold medals he won.'

Which was the more satisfactory? The quick, initial response, was that it “had to be the points race, really. It was my first individual national title.”

Then a pause and some more consideration. “But the team pursuit... no ... that was equally as good because we took four or five seconds off the record, and I think I like team events more than individual. “It’s like with team time, trials on the road: I like it' fast all the way, and it has to be. Then no-one can sprint, you in after sitting on all the way, and you usually feel a ■ lot better at the end.

“Take that team pursuit at Levin. Wayne had growled at me. after the second ride for

going too hard towards the end, and being responsible for Tony Fuller being dropped, when it wasn’t necessary. He said he wanted to use me up in the final, so started me with a full lap; another one I did later, and one from Craig, gave the right sort of break for Tony.

“He went far better, we all went better and felt better, and I think everyone riding a 90in gear helped too. I’d ridden 88 in the first round and I didn’t like it.”

Where many would have been mightily content with being part of smashing a fine New Zealand record, Fowler — riding for enjoyment or not — was not. “I told Gavin (Neale, another of the Canterbury team coaches) the night before I would win the points race,” and true to his determination, Fowler prepared himself properly for his aim.

That win duly came, and by an overwhelming margin, with Fowler not slow to point to the support he received from his teammates. “Last year, and this, are the only times I have seen Canterbury guys ride as a team. I think there is a greater awareness that if you can’t win the race, it’s better to help a team-mate do so.”

And he. thinks the example of the Australians at the last Oceania Games may have rubbed off on some of the young Canterbury riders. Now, with the next Oceania Games nearing and Fowler a part of that team — where he would like to ride the top pursuit team and in the road race (“I think I’ve got a fair chance, there”), he is also casting an eye at the

points’ race . . . “though I think I would probably be there to help someone else. If you do, however, you’re usually helping yourself.” Pressed to the point, Fowler admits that he still regards himself primarily a road rider, though the two facets of the sport are dove tailing smoothly together in’ his case. When he insists that he “wouldn't ride anywhere else but on scratch; the good guys are all there; it’s even with everyone coming through all the time,” he is really talking of road racing. But he is equally quick to more than just imply that his road experiences, once he left novice ranks, had reflected in a better grasp of track racing, particularly team pursuiting. “The seniors — and Russell Nant was a good example •— kept showing me how you have to keep chasing wheels, getting close to them.” Where to now for Brian Fowler? He would certainly like to ride the Tasmanian tour, in which he performed so worthily last year, again in August, but accepts that Oceania Games team members will not be allowed to do so. And he would also love to be part of Canterbury winning three national junior team time trial titles on end. Again, the Oceania Games might prevent that. So the Oceania Games loom largest, then. “Obviously the Games will, be important in their own right, and they are important as a stepping stone for the Commonwealth Games, also in Brisbane.”

Otherwise, Brian Fowler, quiet aggressor, looks at the road: “I like making people suffer a bit.” and “I always like surprising people.” He certainly did that with the sprint silver medal, the result which is perhaps a little low in his personal esteem but one which means “I can match it with all the .other guys in a sprint, and that makes me more confident”