Medals relief for N.Z. manager

Press, 30 July 1986, Page 76

Medals relief for N.Z. manager

NZPA staff correspondent Edinburgh The Kiwi athletics manager, Steve Bollings, said he had a “harrowing time” until New Zealand won two medals on the Meadowbank track yesterday. "At last we’ve got on the scoreboard,” Mr Bollings told his fellow Kiwi team managers. "It has been a bit of a harrowing time for me. I was hoping we’d have been on the scoreboard before now.” Mr Bollings said the performances by the 10,000 m silver medallist, Anne Audain, and the decathlete bronze winner, Simon Poelman, were of a high standard and had picked up team morale, “which was a little low.” “I’m delighted that we got a silver and a bronze. I think we picked the hard events to get them in,” he said. “Simon performed magnificently well. When you’re up against a double Olympic champion, world champion and world record holder (Daley Thompson) you’re fighting for the second medal.”

Audain, who led the 10,000 m until passed by Scotland’s Liz Lynch 800 m out, had given a “gutsy” performance, he said. • Lynch, the golden 10,000 m woman from Dundee, had never met Audain before yesterday’s classic Commonwealth Games inaugural women’s race.

“I had heard of her and gave her a lot of respect, but this was the first time we had met,” Lynch said Games reports Pages 45-49