Mosse captures gold with remarkable time

Press, 31 July 1986, Page 27

Mosse captures gold with remarkable time

From

KEVIN TUTTY

in Edinburgh

Anthony Mosse won the gold medal in the 200 m butterfly yesterday at the Royal Commonwealth Games swimming pool as expected; but it was the manner of his win as much as the excitement of another gold medal for New Zealand which captured the imagination.

Mosse is a confident, quiet young man, much in the . mould of Mark Treffers, who won gold in Christchurch 12 years ago. Mosse bettered his personal best time for the 200 m butterfly by an extraordinary 1.47 s to win the gold medal. That was the second fastest time in the world this year. The only person to swim faster was “The Albatross,” the West German, Michael Gross, and that was when he set a new world record of lmin 56.24 s four weeks ago. Mosse recorded lmin 57.27 s which shattered the old Commonwealth Games record held by Tom Ponting of Canada, and was 0.23 s outside the Commonwealth record set by Jon Sieben, of Australia, when he won the gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics two years ago. Sieben was not at these championships. He has been forced out of swimming for an indefinite period by the scourge of swimmers, glandular fever. Mosse’s time also rates him the third fastest

swimmer of all time in the event, the only people who have swum faster being Gross and Silben. After the race Mosse said he believed he had it won when the swimmers were on the blocks. “I was swimming for a win first but also a time, and I had hoped to time in the low 1.57 s or high 1.565. If I did that I did’nt think there would be anyone else there.” Mosse quickly asserted himself in the race. He came out of the dive behind Ponting, but within 25m had edged ahead, and he was never headed from that point. At the 100 m turn he was half a length ahead of Ponting and the race was going to plan. He said afterwards that he wanted to be ahead at the 50m turn and apply a little more pressure to the rest of the field in the remaining three laps. He did just that and by the 150 m turn was a bodylength clear of the field. Ponting made a brief bid to catch the New Zealander, but Mosse had timed his race perfectly and although tiring a little in the final 25m held his

stroke together superbly. After the race Mosse said he was better prepared than he has ever been for a race. His in fact, was a complex preparation beause he has trained under three coaches in the last few months. Until the American university vacation started two months ago, Mosse was training with Skip Kenny at Stanford University. After that he spent time with Paul Bergen, an American now coaching in Canada, and who is the head coach of the Canadian women’s team at the Commonwealth Games. Part of Mosse’s preparation with Bergen included three weeks training at high altitude in Utah. At the Games he has come under the eye of the head coach of the New Zealand team, Hisashi Inomata, who was Mosse’s coach when he was swimming in New Zealand. “Having so many coaches has not proven a problem though. All the coaches, including Paul and Sashi, have worked in well, and there have been no hassles from either

team, even though I beat a Canadian.” The next big event in this young man’s sights now is the world championships in Madrid from August 13 to 23. There he will meet the man who has dominated world 200 m butterfly swimming for the- last three years, Gross. Mosse is not going to be overawed by the fact that Gross set a world record a month ago. Sieben proved at the Olympics that the huge West German is beatable. There were no predictions from Mosse regarding the world championship. “I don’t want to make predictions and put pressure on myself. I just want to go out there and swim well and I know that I am in the best condition I have ever been in.” Mosse’s 1.47 s improvement took him to within 1.03 s of Gross. The question now is whether he can make a similar improvement in Madrid. Mosse is confident he will improve again because he said he is not in top racing trim and the pool in Madrid will be a little faster than it is in Edinburgh.