Walking: Barrett will stick with his unorthodox coach

After a battling 18th in the Olympic Games 50km road walk on Friday, New Zealander Craig Barrett said he would stick with his unorthodox Chinese coach Kui Wang.

Barrett, 28, was hailed as one of the strongest prospects in the athletics squad, after finishing eighth at the 1999 world championships in Spain.

Wang, 70, who oversaw the Chinese walk team for 25 years and has a son who lives in Auckland, approached Barrett about coaching him last year.

The Sports Foundation helped Wang to New Zealand, and also helped provide an interpreter for him because he speaks only a few words of English.

Some of his methods are unconventional; midwinter dips in the Waikato River and Chinese methodology that has him doing all but the toughest workouts in a tracksuit.

``When I took him on it was a long-term commitment - so I'll be continuing,'' Barrett said.
''I'm not putting any dates on it.''

Barrett attacked the race, matching strides with eventual gold medallist Robert Korzeniowski of Poland through the 20km in a 13-strong lead pack.

But Korzeniowski raced away to gold in 3 hours 42 minutes 21 seconds, while Barrett arrived at the finish in 3hr 55min 53secs - seven minutes outside his best.

``It was a tough day. Obviously it wasn't the result I'd set my sights on, but ... you have good ones, you have bad ones, today this was one of the tough ones,'' he said.

``I was prepared to the best level I could. My coach had me in great form and I'm just sorry I couldn't show that. I believed that I had a better time in me.''

A plan to go with the leaders was rapidly revised when the pace went on before 25km, leaving Barrett struggling to keep up.

``It was just like it fell away so I had to start being flexible with things,'' he said.

``The boys were just going too fast, I couldn't maintain that rhythm, I really just had to find my own rhythm.''

Barrett was left hoping he would pick off stragglers as they fell of the pace. That never happened.

By 25km Barrett was 51 seconds off the back of the lead pack in ninth.

He was 10th at 30km; 15th at 35km; then 20th at 40km. He rallied to 18th over the last 10km, as walkers ahead of him were disqualified.

Barrett, who collapsed from heat exhaustion at the 1998 Commonwealth Games with a gold medal beckoning, drank plenty of water on Friday.

It was 15degC at 8am (Australian time) when the race started in light mist. By halfway it was 19degC, and in the mid 20s by the finish.

``I allowed for the conditions, I took all those into account, I raced as well as I could,'' Barrett said.

``I'm just sorry it wasn't the result that I'd planned and that a lot of my supporters had planned too.''

He agreed that he could have finished up the field had he not been so aggressive early on ``but I came here racing to win''.

``This is the Olympics. I wasn't prepared to just hang back and produce the best time I could. I'm proud that I did the best that I could. I just wasn't the best athlete here today. That's all there is to it.''

- NZPA