Have-a-go Ivan's a real star

HAMISH BIDWELL
There's no doubt that chatting to international sportsmen is great for your ego.
It helps you kid yourself that you're rubbing shoulders with the great and good of the world and that the things you say about them have some kind of importance.
It's an illusion though. They need you like a hole in the head and, at the end of the day, it really is just tomorrow's fish and chip paper.
Then you stumble across a bloke like Ivan Smart. The kind of battler and enthusiast that reminds you why covering sport is the greatest job in the world.
Smart is typical of so many people taking part in tomorrow's Tour of the Bay. Someone who's always loved sport, gravitated to cycling as some of the old joints began to wear out and gives their guts week and week out, without ever receiving a glimmer of recognition.
For some, the gruelling 110km ride will be the culmination of months of dedicated training. While for others, like Smart, the Tour of the Bay is the ideal tune-up for bigger races ahead.
"My main goal is Taupo. I'd like to get around there in under four-and-a-half hours," said Smart of that 160km event.
"I was looking at about 4.22 last year and I got a puncture five kilometres from the end. I felt like that kid at kindergarten who's had his dummy taken off him.
"My main goal for Sunday is to try and stick with the guys at the front. I've been dropped on the hill the last two years and I'd really like to stay on this time.
"It'll be tough, especially if it blows like this and it's hot. The other thing this year is that the field is huge. We've got about 900 riding in the 110k, so if you ride in the middle of the pack, you've really got to count on people being sensible.
"In that kind of bunch, it only takes someone to get a bit tired at 80k, wobble, flick a wheel and you've got big trouble."
Provided Smart makes it through tomorrow unscathed, and then again on the around Lake Taupo ride, he hopes to diversify a bit.
"I really want to get the monkey off my back and do the Ironman. I haven't done a triathlon in 17 years, but I'm entered in a half-Ironman in Rotorua in December. If that goes all right, then I'll do the full Ironman at Taupo," he said.
"I rate myself as an above average swimmer, I ride okay, but I run like a 90-year old. I've always wanted to do one and then my wife, Lorraine, said 'you're 47 now, your body is getting a bit tired, so why don't you have a go now?'
"I've always liked my sport and I played softball for Hawke's Bay for eight years, as pitcher, and played for teams in Canada and America. I played golf too, at Michael Campbell's old club (Titahi Bay) and won the club champs there in 1986.
"So I just thought I'd give this a go and if I can finish the Ironman in under 12 hours, I'll be delighted. Anything under 12 hours is respectable and if my running goes well, then I think that's achievable. Even if it's just by one minute - I'll be ecstatic.
"I'm not a great cyclist. I think I've been with Ramblers about nine years and this is my second year in B-grade. In the first season, jeez, I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest.
"I'd done all right in C-grade, but Ramblers isn't sociable. These guys race and there were times in B-grade when I was getting dropped after one kilometre.
"My legs would be stinging, my heart was pounding and I was going as fast as I could, but I just couldn't stay on.
"I'm still not the greatest, but I just love that feeling of being fit and challenging yourself."