Cold, harsh wind forces out Lorraine Moller

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 40

Cold, harsh wind forces out Lorraine Moller

NZPA staff correspondent New York Alberto Salazar, of the United States, surged to a four second win in the New York Marathon yesterday but New Zealand’s hopes were shattered when Lorraine Moller pulled out and the Norwegian runner, Grete Waitz, scored her fourth victory in the women’s section. Before the camera was last year’s women’s champion, New Zealand’s Allison Roe, sidelined with an achilles tendon injury, who provided an expert commentary for A.B.C. television as a frosty wind blustered the field down to slow times in temperatures below 50 degress Fahrenheit. Mrs Roe’s world best time — 2:25.29 — was safe. Grete Waitz’s time, over a fractionally changed course, was 2:27.14, well outside her fastest time on this course of 2:25.42. That was her 1980 time. In 1978, her first marathon, she amazed the running world with a then world fastest time of 2:32.30, nearly 10 minutes ahead of her nearest rival. In 1979 the Norwegian schoolteacher won in 2:27.33 — another world best. In the 1981 race she pulled out after 15 miles with shin splints, but her time in yesterday’s tough conditions shows the 29 year old is still in top form. What is needed now is a race between her and Mrs Roe, aged 25, when both are in top form, to determine which one is faster on the same courge in the same conditions. This may come in New York next year. Mrs Roe is recovering well from her injured achilles tendon (and subsequent back trouble) after whirlpool and ice treatment, and set a course record in a 10 kilometre race in Kentucky a fortnight ago. She is now thinking of entering the New York Marathon again next year, and possibly the Rome Marathon in April.

The first New Zealander home appeared to be the 45-year-old Robin Hames, last year's women's masters' champion, and one of the few, despite a flu which left her croaking and shivering, to improve her time against the teeth of a cold, hard wind, which blew to well over 20 knots, mostly against or across the runners. Her time was only a little over 2:46, some two minutes faster than her time last year of 2:48.13, and an indication of the work this Auckland regional fire services’ secretary put in before and after her over-all win in the women’s section of the Auckland Marathon this year — a much tougher course — in 2:44.37. She may well have retained her title in New York, but the statistics were still being compiled late last evening. The' wind punched Lorraine Moller in the stomach. She was planning to use the front women runners as a wind-break, but fell behind, stopped for a glass of toocold water, developed stomach cramps, tried too hard to catch up, caught the cold and the wind as she ran alone, and pulled out at the end of the fourteenth mile after slowing to a'jog, a halt and then a walk. Salazar’s victory over Mexico’s Rodolfo Gomez was the second close marathon he has won this year. Salazar is also a 5000 metres and 10,000 metres runner — he has won American records for both this year — and his ability to kick at the end of a gruelling 26.2 mile race shows that a middle-distance runner such as New Zealand’s Rod Dixon, who ran his first marathon in Auckland last May and won it in 2:11.21, may have some basis for his claim that he could run a marathon under ideal conditions in 2:07.38 (a figure so extraordinarily precise — it would be a world record — that it has baffled the experts).

The watchers in New York were looking closely at 5000 and 10,000 metres' winners running their first marathon, hesitant to predict their times. Salazar, aged 24, and born in Cuba (he came to the United States when he was two), inched ahead of a Minnesotan, Dick Beardsley, aged 26, to win the Boston Marathon this year by two seconds — and that was after Beardsley had sideswiped a press bus and put a foot in a pot-hole. Salazar called that race the toughest he had ever run, and the tabloid newspapers in New York billed yesterday’s marathon as a grudge match between the two, but Beardsley developed a cramp at mile nine and dropped back out of contention. That left Gomez as the challenger, and the last nine miles of this race were every bit as exciting as Boston, with Salazar and Gomez running neck and neck, occasionally changing position by a half pace or a full pace (Salazar soon caught up the 40 yards lead Gomez developed soon after he had caught the master), and the crowds roared as the two fought it out down Central Park to the finish line, Salazar winning with his final kick. . Third was Daniel Schlesinger, of Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2:11.54, a runner so unknown he was not even included in a list of 27 top men the race organisers put out, and whose previous best time of 2:17.58 put him ninety-first at the start. In the women’s section, Julie Brown, aged 27, of San Diego took more than four minutes off her previous best time of 2:33.40 at White Rock, Dallas, last December to finish second in 2:28.33, but she was still one minute and 19 seconds behind Grete Waitz, who finished in 2:27.14. Third was Charlotte Teske, of West Germany, in 2:31.53.