Asian athletes to excel in marathon and walking event

JAKARTA (JP): Asian athletes can defeat athletes from Western and African countries in the marathon and long-distance events at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, according to the secretary- general of the Asian Amateur Athletics Association, Maurice Nicholas.

Nicholas said women's and men's marathoners from Japan and South Korea had undergone long-term training to prepare themselves to win Olympic medals.

And the Chinese women are ready to take the lead in the walking event and the long-distance races, particularly the 10,000m, he said.

"In the long-distance events, I believe controversial Chinese coach Ma Juren has some good women's runners for the Olympics," he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Nicholas was referring to the flamboyant former middle school teacher who became a folk hero in China following the success of his athletes in the early 1990s.

Ma has been brought back as a coach by the Chinese athletics authorities in a bid to bring the country success in Sydney, and his reappearance on the national scene has generated a buzz of expectation.

Ma shot to fame when his stable of relatively unknown women's runners produced a stunning sweep in the middle and long-distance events at the 1993 World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

The sudden success caused suspicions of drug taking, leading to a whispering campaign, but Ma has always firmly denied the rumors. He credited the success of his runners to his training methods and his natural potions of caterpillar fungus and turtle blood.

But after dominating the 1994 Asian Games, albeit with slower times, the army of runners virtually disappeared from the international scene, although Wang Junxia won the 10,000m at the 1996 Olympics after breaking from Ma.

"Ma may have lost many good athletes afterward, but he produced new athletes and they are doing good," Nicholas said.

He also said China and Kazakhstan boasted shot putters who could challenge the world's best.

But Asian sprinters still have a long way to go to be able to surpass their U.S. counterparts, he said. "I don't think we can touch the United States sprinters. Our sprinters have to run below 10 seconds."

Nicholas said the exception was top Japanese sprinter Koji Ito, the Asian record holder with a time of 10 seconds.

Ito said earlier he might not win an Olympic medal but he planned to break 10-second barrier. He clocked an unofficial time of 9.9 seconds at a domestic exhibition in June last year.

The 30-year-old sprinter was a reserve at the 1992 Barcelona Games, but in 1996 he became the first Japanese to reach the Olympic 200m semifinals and was part of the team that finished fifth in the 4x400m relay at Atlanta.

Nicholas said other Asian countries had prepared their Olympic athletes to perform at their best in the quadrennial event.

"I think every country has dreams of Olympics medals. Each country has their own training programs and produces good athletes. So far, Japan, China, South Korea, India and Qatar have tried very hard," he said. (ivy)