Silver to NZ runner in deaf marathon

New Zealand’s Kevin Lawrence won silver in the World Games for the Deaf marathon yesterday, but had to survive a protest.

Lawrence, from Taranaki, was nearly 10min behind the winner, Frenchman Taleb, Tounsi, and 13sec ahead of third-placed American Thomas Bechtel, at the line.

Bechtel protested the Kiwi was paced by an official on a bicycle, but the protest was dismissed and the placings stood.

Tounsi’s time of 2hr 24min 18sec was a Deaf Games record. Lawrence’s time was 2:33.07, and Bechtel’s 2:34.20.

West Germany and Soviet Union shared honours in the glamour 1500m track events, Gertrud Maier (West Germany) taking the women’s event and Alexander Hoti-anovich the men’s.

Brilliant riding by the Italian team in the 50km criterium cycle race gave it the gold and silver medals on Sunday afternoon.

Giovanni Dollorenza was first with Marco Fontanive second and Jon Schmitz of the United States third.

Equally as much credit for the Italian success must go to Andrea Dissenga and Maurizio Pisetta who rode their hearts out blocking at the front of the main bunch and chasing down all attempts to catch their two compatriots.

Glen Moran of Australia was the first rider to make a move when he made a solo break in the third lap. He got away to a lead of 100m but it was short-lived.

The first sprint for points after five laps was won by double cycling gold medallist and favourite for this event, Jon Schmitz.

The decisive break came in the sixth lap. Dollorenzo and Fontanive sprinted from the bunch and working in strong unison established a lead of 33sec by the end of the eighth lap.

It was a lead they never lost. From this point on their lead over the main bunch varied between 21 and 33sec.

Back in the bunch Dissenga and Pisetta were doing a tremendous team job on chasing every attempt by the other riders to catch the leaders and slowing them down.

Overtaken

Early points leader Schmitz was slowly overtaken in the points by the two Italians who were out in front picking up most sprint points.

The strong American riders who had shown out so well in the other cycling events appeared to function as four individuals rather than as a team and took little positive action to bridge the gap to the leaders.

Four laps from the end Gerald Troch (Belgium) made a strong solo chase after the two leaders. He managed to get within 16sec of the leading Italians but unfortunately his effort was too late to have any effect on the overall result.

Entering the last lap, Dollorenzo and Fontanive led by 33sec from the main bunch and had enough points to ensure the first two places. They cruised around the last lap to cross the line together with hands joined to warm applause from the large gathering of spectators.

Troch was third across the line in the last lap and was later followed by Haruhiko Oda (Japan) who led the main bunch home ahead of Schmitz.

Swimmer Michael Lynch won his second bronze medal and New Zealand’s third of the games in the men’s 200m butterfly on Saturday.

Lynch qualified fastest, but in the final finished 6.5sec behind the Soviet Union’s Dmitry Grigoriev. Lynch’s time was 2min 17.19sec.

New Zealand also won the bronze in the women’s basketball, finishing behind Sweden and the United States, which won the gold by beating New Zealand 60–37 in their final match.

The Americans used a full bench of 12 players, all scoring. Suzanne Ovens, 12, and Andrea Vowles, 11 points, top-scored for New Zealand.

In the volleyball, Finland retained the men’s title and West Germany won the women’s. New Zealand’s men lost 1–15, 0–15, 1–15 in their final match against Japan. The women fared marginally better in winning five points over the three sets of their match against the United States.

Italy’s Barbara Oddone became the first tennis player to win three gold medals at a deaf games when she won the singles and both the women’s and mixed doubles.