IAU 100KM WORLD CUP

7 May 1992    By Trevor Jacobs

The 1992 World Cup was held at Palamos, Spain on 16 February 1992. Palamos is a lovely holiday town in the Costa Brava, about 100 Km from Barcelona. Unlike last year, we were lucky enough to field an Australian Team of three, with much assistance from Geoff Hook from AURA, Malcolm Campbell from the IAU and Neil King from AA. All three runners had to finish however, to count as a National team. Other countries covered the odds much better by typically entering six runners, with the first three counting as the team.

The Australian team consisted of Bryan Smith of Westfield fame (and holder of m ultra records), Carl Barker who now resides in the UK (and calls a bus a “BOOSE”) and myself, a real junior in the ultra scene compared with the exploits of others. I was lucky enough to receive some assistance from the ACT Office of Sport, Recreation and Racing. I think that Canberrans are particularly fortunate to receive such good support from the Office because parallel schemes do not seem to exist in other States.

Training for the event progressed well until three weeks before the race when I pulled ligaments in my hip/back area while doing reps on the track. It was a big mistake to try and gain that bit of extra fitness when I should have been consolidating. I suspect that the injury was actually precipitated a month earlier when I stumbled over a tree root and rolled over hitting my hip heavily on the ground. It felt a bit `odd’ for weeks after and the track work finished it off!! The injury meant that little training could be done and it created much consternation. Even two days before race day it was painful to run a short distance slowly. I really thought the race would be a huge disaster and waste of money, time and effort.

Conditions on race day were absolutely perfect, cold (2°C), calm and a bit cloudy/misty; much better than when we earlier passed through Barcelona which was a big, busy, cramped city. The race started at 6.00am in the dark and most runners were well rugged up. I did not discard my gloves, hat and long sleeved T shirt until after half way. Bryan Smith ran the whole way in tights. It was very fortunate that my hip didn’t bother me too much during the race. This was a hugh relief.
Carl Barker started the race at a very (relatively) fast pace and actually led several times in the first 10Km. Unfortunately for him, he soon found that he had not fully recovered from a recent virus and he had to walk most of the last 50 Km. This was important, however, because he had to fmish the race (as did we all) to get a team result. I had a runner from Botswana stuck at my side for several hours early in the race. He left me a bit later when I slowed for a while when my hip got a little sore. It was pleasing to pass him later in the race.

My plan was to try to finish the race in about seven hours. At the half way mark, my time was 3 hours 32 minutes, so that wasn’t too bad. Things slowed a bit afterwards, however, as shown in the 10 Km splits: 83.26 (20Km), 42.52, 43.55, 42.00, 44.41, 44.38, 44.20, 45.37, 46.31 which gave an overall time of 7 hours 18 minutes 00 seconds. This was a new Australian record by 4 minutes. My placing was 31st outright and 6th in the M40 division. Despite slowing significantly over the last 20Km (the worst hills were in this section), I was still quite pleased because I realised a long held wish to pass Don Ritchie (the current 100Km World Record holder) and all of the USA team bar one, as well as many others.

The USSR (or part thereof) won both the mens and womens race in very fast times – Konstantin Santalov (a 2hr 14 minute marathon runner) took 6 hours 23 minutes and 35 seconds and Nurzia Bagmanova took 7 hours 44 minutes and 37 seconds respectively. Local Spanish runner Domingo Catalan finished second in 6 hours 30 minutes 37 seconds and received a tremendous reception. Bryan Smith ran a PB with a time of 7 hours 54 minutes and 31 seconds – as usual, a good solid performance. Carl Barker finished in 11 hours 38 minutes and 16 seconds and was relieved to see the finish time. In the teams, Germany cleaned up in both the mens and womens while our OZ team came 9th.

In the men’s race, it was interesting to note that the complexion of the leaders changed dramatically over the last 30 Km. Out of the top 10 finishers, only about 3 of these were in the top 10 passing the 70 Km point. Such was the nature of the most hotly contested 100 Km race in history. Imagine having the first 20 finishers all recording sub 7 hour times!!

100 Km running is very popular overseas and standards are rapidly rising. Europe stages many 100 Km races and they generally receive wide support and coverage. In comparison, Australia has only a few 100 Km races. The 1993 World Cup will be held in Belgium in August. I hope that there will be a strong Australian team contesting that race – there is plenty of time to prepare if you are interested.

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Tags: Europe, Ultra history

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Tags: Europe, Ultra history