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Organisers Fail Marathon Road Test
7 September 1998JAPANESE runners made a clean sweep of the Sydney Marathon yesterday as organisers battled to overcome an embarrassing stumble over road closures.
Kenichi Takahashi won in two hours 15 minutes and 51 seconds with Yukari Komatsu taking the women's division in 2:29:09.
The Japanese national team used the event as part of their preparation for the Sydney Olympics and filled the first 10 placings in the men's division and the top five for the women's section,but they had to wait to achieve their success after the start of the race was delayed for more than an hour because the Roads and Traffic Authority had not closed off two critical sections of the course.
Athletics New South Wales president Ralph Doubell said the debacle was a major international embarrassment in light of the coming Sydney Olympic Games.
"Especially when you have about 400 overseas runners, including the Japanese Olympic Games squad competing," said Doubell, who won the 1968 Olympic Games 800m gold medal. "When they return home they will be reporting that the marathon started one hour late. The Roads and Traffic Authority charged us $50,000 to construct road barriers – and they didn't. I think there will now be negotiation on the price."
Takahashi, who was never headed after breaking away at the 13km mark, appeared to be in time for a personal best but with five kilometres to go he dropped the pace and missed out by 20 seconds. Kutsohiko Hanada held on for second place in 2:16:42 with Takehura Honda third in 2:17:22. NSW runner Paul Healy was the leading Australian in 2:39:12. The 24-year-old Komatsu was only 21 seconds outside her personal best and had six minutes to spare over runner-up Shiki Terasaki with another 30 seconds to third placed Eri Matsubara.
A 900 strong field was warmed up and ready for the 7am (AEST) start at Miller Street, North Sydney, when police informed organisers of the inadequate road closures. The organisers – Marathon Management – frantically went about rectifying the problem and the race eventually got under way at 8.03am.
Organisers had encountered another crisis 24 hours earlier when they had to arrange the provision of 5000 litres of bottled water for the competitors because of the sudden recurrence of the Sydney water crisis.
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