Athletics: Wyatt aims for third time lucky at Games

By CHRIS RATTUE

Jonathan Wyatt's running career has got longer and longer.

He first popped up at the Commonwealth Games in Canada in 1994, where he was sixth in the 5000m final.

Looking for fresh challenges, he took up the gruelling sport of mountain running, where the athletes run 10km to 15km, often entirely up hills, which proved to be the Wellington architect's forte.

The world events in mountain running are held alternatively on solely uphill courses, or up and down. Wyatt won the titles, going uphill, on an Indian Ocean island in 1998 and in Germany in 2000.

Now he will run just his third marathon, in the Games tomorrow night, after training for a month at altitude in Colorado, where he stayed with Games track runner Michael Aish.

The 29-year-old Wyatt will take on the Commonwealth field with Christchurch runners Craig Kirkwood and Phil Costley, the latter being New Zealand's dominant marathon runner in the past few years.

Wyatt believes the twisting Manchester course will suit him and described the temperatures as ideal.

"It's not a fast course, probably because of the twists," he said.

"There are some 180-degree turns there.

"It's mainly slightly up hill or slightly down all the way.

"It's quite an interesting course and we go around the Old Trafford football ground and the test cricket ground, although you're not really taking those things in when you're running.

"I prefer the more interesting courses, whereas some runners like long straights, where they get into a rhythm."

Wyatt, whose background was in cross-country running, first ran a marathon in Rotorua last year and was 24th at a race in October in Berlin, where he ran 2h 15m to qualify for the Games.

"I hoped to run quicker, but I still learned a lot from that race and I've adjusted my training since," he said.

"I may not have run many marathons but I've competed quite a bit at this level."

The 32-year-old Costley, a teacher, might be New Zealand's best hope.

He finished 10th at the last Games, in Malaysia.

The 28-year-old Kirkwood, a fulltime athlete, qualified in Chicago in October with a time of 2h 13m.

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