Mottram is a marked man :eek:
By MIKE HURST
February 23, 2006
AUSTRALIANS are masterminding a Kenyan assault aimed at stopping fellow Australian Craig “Buster” Mottram from winning two gold medals on the track at next month’s Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
But the Sydney woman who is coaching Kenya’s top two 1500m runners said she was snubbed by Athletics Australia and dismisses suggestions she is unpatriotic.
“I applied (to AA) for the head coach’s job and I didn’t even get an interview,” Di Huxley told The Daily Telegraph yesterday. "I didn’t get one bit of encouragement.
"They were not interested in tapping into my knowledge. So they can’t say that about me.
“These (Kenyan) guys heard about me and came to me. But I do coach young Australians and I’m hoping there will be lots of Australian athletes who will embrace our style of management and coaching.”
Huxley was Australia’s Athens Olympic athletics team manager. She worked as an assistant to controversial former national distance coach, Said Aouita, some of whose training ideas she still uses although she had a falling out with the Moroccan over his style of management.
She was out of a job when the distance program at the Australian Institute of Sport was dumped early last year and she started coaching a squad of six Kenyans last September, including Haron Keitany and Jonathan Komen, the first two men across the line in this month’s Kenyan 1500m selection trial.
Her friend, Sydney lawyer Peter Healey, manages them, as well as the Games steeplechase favourite Reuben Kosgei – the Sydney Olympic gold medallist now also coached by Huxley.
Mottram will compete in the 1500m and 5000m – the event in which he shattered the African domination to win the bronze medal at last year’s world championships in Helsinki.
James Templeton is the other Australian whose fortune is tied to Mottram’s fate. He manages little-known Augustine Choge, who won the Kenyan 5000m trial.
Healey and Templeton both attended Sydney’s St Ignatius College although neither were outstanding athletes and did not know each other until drawn together through their Kenyan connection.
The race of next month’s Games has been billed as the 5000m with Mottram taking on Benjamin Limo, Kenya’s world championship gold medallist.
But with the guidance and financial support of Sydney banker Templeton, teenager Choge is planning to gatecrash the Melbourne party.
Aware that he might not be the most popular man in Melbourne if Choge denies Mottram the gold, Templeton revealed it was he who pushed for Choge to race at the Games next month as well as in his priority event, the 4km race at the world cross-country championship in Japan 10 days later.
Asked he would feel unpatriotic if Choge burst Mottram’s party balloon, Templeton yesterday told The Daily Telegraph: "No. Running against Mottram in Melbourne would be wonderful for Augustine.
“If Mottram wins, fantastic. I won’t be gutted. It’s not going to make or break Augustine’s career.”
And Choge knows he’ll be in for a fight with Mottram whom he named as Kenya’s most feared opponent.
“He proved he can mix with the best in Helsinki (at the world titles) and I think he will be very difficult running at home in front of an adoring crowd,” Choge said respectfully.
At 162cm and 53kg Choge will be dwarfed by Mottram (188cm/71kg), recalling the 1982 Brisbane Games marathon between Tanzania’s Juma Ikangaa and Rob de Castella.
I ordered stuff from CF in november and still don’t have it yet. I have emailed several times. Have any of you had this experience? How do I get my $87 back. They say they need information to follow up on and then when I send it they ignore me then I start over again. How do you solve.