Defeat of Ovett seals place for O’Donoghue

Press, 8 March 1984, Page 40

Defeat of Ovett seals place for O’Donoghue

PA Auckland The generosity of the 1964 Olympic 1500 m bronze medallist, John Davies, looks likely to have helped Auckland’s 1500 m champion, Peter O’Donoghue, land a place in the New Zealand team for the Los Angeles Olympics.

In Melbourne on Tuesday night O’Donoghue bettered New Zealand’s 3min 38s Olympic 1500 m standard by almost a second when he ran 3min 37.085. Not only that, but he beat one of the favourites for the Olympic 1500 m gold medal, the world 1500 m recordholder and 1980 Olympic 800 m champion, Steve Ovett.

Admittedly Ovett is in Australia primarily to condition himself for the Los Angeles Games and was having his first competitive outing for six months, but it was a significant victory for the 22-year-old O’Donoghue nonetheless.

O’Donoghue had been bitterly disappointed at narrowly missing the Games standard when he ran 3min 39.05 s in a special time trial under adverse conditions at Mr Smart Stadium last Sunday “Peter was really down after the attempt and I realised some drastic action was needed,” Davies explained yesterday. “I had heard about last

night’s meeting in Melbourne so I made inquiries about getting Peter a start in the 1500 m. “I also contacted the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association about the possibility of the association’s paying Peter’s way but I got a negative response. “So I dipped into my own pocket and paid his return air fare.” Davies also lent O’Donoghue, who is unemployed, $lOO to cover any additional expenses in Australia. Davies has coached O’Donoghue for several years and has long maintained that he has more natural talent than any other young middle distance runner in New Zealand.

“Peter has all the right attitudes required to succeed — he is totally committed,” said Davies. “You don’t mind helping someone like that.”

An elated O’Donoghue said after his Melbourne success that it was great to have qualified after the problems he had encoun-

tered in recent weeks: “And it was also nice to beat Steve,” he added. “I realised that if ever I was to beat him, tonight was the night.” Ovett said: “It’s always disappointing to lose but it was a good first up run. The race blew away the cobwebs and I’ll get better with more races to come in Sydney and Adelaide.”

New Zealand now has three athletes — John Walker, Waikato’s Tony Rogers, and O’Donoghue — who have achieved the 3min 38s Games standard.

In Auckland on Tuesday night, the news wasn’t so good for Christine Hughes, who made her second attempt in three days on the Olympic women’s 300 m standard of Bmin 56.55.

Paced throughout by John Walker she ran 9min 3.8 s — almost 4s slower than her time of 9min 00.47 s from last Saturday night. Walker appears to have almost completely recovered from the hamstring injury suffered in Los Angeles early last month.