Boycott leaves gaps

Press, 21 July 1986, Page 38

Boycott leaves gaps

NZPA-Reuter Edinburgh The widening boycott of the Commonwealth Games is hitting the athletics programme particularly hard with many of the top competitors absent.

With Jamaica joining the growing list of nations staying away, top sprinters such as Merlene Ottey-Page, the 200 metres gold medallist in Brisbane in 1982, and her compatriots, Grace Jackson and Juliet Cuthbert, will be missing. Ottey-Page has set a 1986 Commonwealth-best mark of 11.05 seconds for 100 metres and is in second place on the 200 metres ranking list behind Jackson with 22.465. Jackson has clocked 22.395.

Cuthbert has a 100 metres best time of 11.24 s and 22.71 s for 200 metres, second and third fastest respectively. Two other Jamaican women were rated leading candidates for medals

— the long jumper, Cynthia Henry, and the 400 metres hurdles specialist Sandra Farmer. Henry has leapt 6.70 metres this year while Farmer has managed 55.94 s for the one lap test. Jamaica’s challenge in the men’s events was to have been headed by the world champion Bert Cameron, defending his 400 metres crown. Africans already out before Jamaica made its decision included Kenya’s Olympic champion, Julius

Korir, who has a 1986 world best 3000 m steeplechase time of Bmin 15.415. He, too, claimed gold in Brisbane. Other games champions from boycotting nations unable to defend their titles are the Tanzanian, Gidamis Shahanga, in the 10,000 m, and a long jumper, Shonel Ferguson, of the Bahamas.

The classy Nigerian sprint squad was led by Chidi Imo, who headed the Olympic champion, Carl Lewis, over 100 m at the Goodwill Games in Moscow. Only Ben John-

son, of Canada, beat him, just as he did at a meeting in Birmingham, yesterday. Boxing has also been badly affected by the boycott