UFO Info Week-End

Yet the overriding emotion in Durban yesterday had nothing to do with the intrigue excitement and nervous

Yet the overriding emotion in Durban yesterday had nothing to do with the intrigue, excitement and nervous tension now being generated in advance of this weekend’s monumental second Test between South Africa and the British Isles It was one of pure relief. A brand new threequarter line for the Springboks, a withering injury blow for Ieuan Evans that will cost the Lions the services of their most experienced wing. Inger Miller, of the United States, won the race with a time of 22.48, equalling the year’s best Perec clocked 23.17.Results, Digest, page 29. It was Perec’s first race of the season and she explained afterwards that she was only just getting over a stress fracture of the shin. I am very disappointed.”In the 200m, Frankie Fredericks, the last man to beat Johnson at the distance, won last night’s event in 20.38, with Trinidad’s Ato Boldon – the fastest man this year over 100m – way back in sixth in 20.75.The local favourite Marie-Jose Perec, the women’s 200 and 400 metres Olympic champion, disappointed her fans by coming in a poor seventh in the 200m. The 27-year-old Teddington-based runner, in her first serious outing over the distance this year, was never on the same pace as the leaders as she finished in 8min 53.53sec.O’Sullivan was nearly 13 seconds down on the winner Gabriela Szabo, the Romanian who was beaten into second place by Britain’s Kelly Holmes in the European Cup 1500m in Munich last weekend. “I have no explanation to what has happened,” said O’Sullivan after losing out to one of her likely chief rivals at this summer’s World Championships “If I did I wouldn’t have finished where I did.

Another American – Brian Lewis – was third in 10.19, while Maurice Greene, the US trials winner, could only finish fourth in 10.23.Bailey is clearly in shape to give Christie a severe test on Sunday, though he has failed to beat Britain’s top sprinter in their two previous meetings over the rarely run distance in Sheffield in recent years.Hicham El Guerrouj, whose fall in last summer’s Olympic 1500m final prevented him making his expected challenge against the world champion, Noureddine Morceli, earned a measure of revenge last night as he beat his Algerian rival with a winning time of 3:31.87.Sonia O’Sullivan, Ireland’s reigning world 5,000m champion, had to settle for fourth place in the 3,000m. Despite racing on a track left damp by the day-long downpour, the world and Olympic champion won in a time of 10.07sec to see off a field containing all of his leading American rivals.The Canadian won by 500ths of a second from Tim Montgomerie, second in the recent US trials. The only 400m he ran before yesterday was on 19 April when he won in 43.75, the fastest early-season time this year.Bailey prepared for Sunday’s pounds 50,000 challenge against Linford Christie with an easy 100m victory. The American gained the historic double in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, setting a world record of 19.32 in the 200m, but the last time he finished a race was on 25 May in Oregon. All we can do is work on it.”Pettigrew recorded 44.86sec, with the Olympic bronze medallist, Davis Kamoga, second in 45.19sec after four runners passed a flagging Johnson near the line.Johnson, whose winning streak began on April Fools’ Day, 1989, injured his quadricep muscle in the self-styled One To One Challenge against Donovan Bailey over 150m on 1 June. “I always get good results there and I am not saying that because I won my first 500cc there in 1992.”Criville, who won the Spanish Grand Prix in May and was beaten only narrowly by Doohan in Assen last year, is determined to do better than he did in the last grand prix in France two weeks ago, when he finished fourth.Max Biaggi, who has also won three world titles, is leading the 250cc category with 111 points after six races in his first season for Honda, 13 points ahead of his team-mate Ralf Waldmann of Germany.

The Italian teenager Valentino Rossi, riding an Aprilia, leads the 125cc category with four victories from six races Rossi is on 120 points, 21 clear of Honda’s Noboru Ueda.. Its surface is constructed like public roads with the camber falling away from the centre to provide effective rain drainage, posing a major challenge for the driving skills for riders.”It is very fast and flowing, which is fine, but there are no real corners – many kinks,” said Doohan, who is now 43 points clear of his nearest rival, Honda team-mate Alex Criville of Spain.”It has a crown in the middle of the road which makes the corner banked, which means as you come out and over the top of the crown the bike goes light and gives you a lot of wheelspin,” said Doohan, who has achieved 39 grand prix wins, 75 top-three placings, 41 pole positions and 35 fastest laps.The lap record at Assen has been held since 1991 by Texan Kevin Schwantz, who clocked 2min 02.443sec.Unlike Doohan, Criville actually likes Assen “It is probably one of my favourite tracks,” he said. The twisting 6.049-kilometre circuit challenges riders with numerous high-speed kinks and rapid direction changes. Another victory on Saturday would be his sixth win in seven outings this season and put him firmly en route to a fourth successive world title.Doohan has compared racing at Assen to racing on public roads without lamp-posts and houses. “I have always been fast and have had some good results but I don’t enjoy going there.” Doohan’s leg almost had to be amputated after the 1992 smash.
But, much to his own surprise, he has won the Dutch world championship race for the past three years. “Assen is a place that I find difficult to get along with,” the Australian said. “Everything is damp and freezing,” she said.Shirley Robertson scored a sixth and two firsts to share the lead with Sweden’s Cecilia Bengtsson in the single-handed Europe class after the first day of the Kiel Week Regatta.