Don Drives On Through Heat

WALKERS from Steyning Athletic Club did not disgrace themselves in England action at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester this week.

None medalled but none will forget the experience, not least because of the contrasting weather in which they had to compete.

The two 20km athletes Don Bearman and Niobe Menendez were both walking on Sunday, the hottest day of the year so far. Then Gareth Brown woke up on Tuesday morning and, although it was slightly cooler, did the 50km Walk in torrential downpours with thunder and lightning.

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Don Bearman managed fifth place in 1hr 37min 29sec, eight minutes outside his personal best, probably a little disappointing on what he had originally hoped to achieve.

Team authorities were unable to put us in touch with Bearman after the event.

Niobe Menendez was also a little disappointed with her time of 1hr 46min 16sec in the Womens' 20km, but came seventh exactly where she expected, since that is where she is ranked.

Menendez is 35, a student midwife studying at Poole, who joined Steyning in season 1998-9 after returning to England from Ireland.

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Previously a runner with Croydon Harriers she switched to race walking just five years ago.

She said, of her performance in Manchester: "The time is irrelevant, really, because of the fact that the first 4km were walked at an absolute crawl and I hadn't had a great month preceding the Games.

"I dropped out of the leading pack after 6km and had to finish the race in my own company and in blistering hot temperatures nearly 30 degrees. I took on water like nobody's business."

The Games were obviously her biggest meeting or event her previous high being a World Veterans title (35+) in Italy during May.

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She also set the British Senior 3000m record of 13min 08sec in January.

The hot weather suited her, because her father is Spanish, but Niobe is a Greek first name. And, to cap it all, her parents gave her a made-up middle name Jonilla.

Gareth Brown had problems on Tuesday in the drenching conditions, although, again, we were unable to speak with him afterwards to ascertain what they were.

His target was to improve on his personal-best time of 4hr 16min 46sec.

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Someone matched that: it was Steve Hollier, one of Brown's two England team-mates, in sixth place. Brown was 23min 21 sec off that pace with 4hr 40min 7sec and seventh place in a field of nine.

The race was all based away from the main stadium, ona flat course around the district of Salford Quays.

Behind Brown were the third Australian, Liam Murphy, and the third Englishman, Mark Easton.

The race itself was set ablaze by the lightning and the title went to Aussie, Nathan Deaks, who set a new Commonwealth Games record time of 3hr 52min 40sec.

Craig Brown finished 47min 26sec afterwards.

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Craig Barrett of New Zealand took the silver in 3hr 56min 42sec and Tim Berrett, the only Canadian in the starting line-up, won bronze in 4hr 4min 25sec.

Fourth and fifth went to Dwane Cousins of Australia and Tony Sargisson of New Zealand, so the contest was between just four nations.