British runner beats Bile

Press, 25 September 1989, Page 44

British runner beats Bile

NZPA-AP New York Britain’s Peter Elliott, who a year ago watched the Fifth Avenue Mile from a hospital bed and nearly quit running this year, won the prestigious road race yesterday, upsetting Abdi Bile. Overshadowed in the pre-race hoopla over an anxiously awaited match between Bile, of Somalia, and Said Aouita, of Morocco, the red-haired Elliott overcame strong winds and light rain to win in 3min 52.955ec. In winning the 20-block race down one of the world’s most famous thoroughfares for the second time — he also won in 1987 in 3:53.52 — Elliott earned a new Mercedes. Bile, the 1987 world champion and 1989 World Cup winner at 1500 m, and the world’s fastest miler this year, finished second in 3:53.97.

Jeff Atkinson, the winner of the United States Olympic 1500 m trials last year, was third in 3:54.84. In addition to Elliott, there were four other previous winners in the race. The best finisher among them was John Walker, of New Zealand, seventh in 3:57.33. Of the others, Jose Luis Gonzales, of Spain, was tenth in 3:59.25, Sydney Maree of the United States finished thirteenth in 4:01.68, and the two-time champion, Steve Scott, of the United States was fifteenth in 4:02.57. While the men’s race produced an upset, the women’s event followed form, with Romania’s Paula Ivan, the world mile record-holder and 1988 Olympic 1500 m gold medallist, winning in 4:28.25. She was followed by Svetlana ..Kitova, of the Soviet Union, in 4:29.61 and Christina Cahill, of

Britain, in 4:29.71. Elliott, the Olympic silver medallist at 1500 m and fourth-placed finisher in the 800 m, was hospitalised after the Seoul Games with an abdominal injury, suffered while he was warming up for the 800 m final. That cost him a chance to defend his title in the Fifth Avenue Mile. “I watched the race on television from a hospital bed in Coventry (England),” he recalled. After recovering from that injury, Elliott-was sidelined with a stress fracture of the left shin. “That put me out for three months,” Elliott said. That is when he thought about quitting/! was totally depressed,” he said. “I thought about packing it in. I didn’t think I would recover.” He did recover by the end of June and resumed training. But not until August 20 did he run his first race of the year.