The Marathon Manâ€™s reading

Sydney, September 30: ``Mark my word. It will be a tactical race,'' predicts Hugh Jones about Sunday's grand finale, the marathon. Jones s...

Sydney, September 30: “Mark my word. It will be a tactical race,” predicts Hugh Jones about Sunday’s grand finale, the marathon. Jones should know. He knows every inch of the course where 100 runners will plod through to herald the closing of the 15-day spectacle.

A former winner of the London Marathon, Jones was hired by the Sydney Olympic Games Organising Committee to measure the 42-km marathon route. “Most of it is flat course and not many corners there. I think it will be a fast time tomorrow morning,” says Jones. “Yes, four in the evening is not a very good time to start the race considering Sydney is unexpectedly hot. But then what can you do if you want prime time coverage on NBC,” says the wiry British runner. “I would love to have the race at midnight but then who would watch it on the TV,” says Jones.

It was a chance meeting with one of the greatest marathoners in the world. Unassuming and modest to the core, I would have passed Jones in a local train as one of those many Sydneysiders thronging to Home Bush, the hub of the Olympic activities. But his thin yet fit frame and well-developed calf muscles said it all. A deeper look and I knew I was confronted with the celebrated marathon runner. And then it was a marathon talk on Marathon.

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“I know Antonio Pinto of Portugal has the fastest credentials (2:06:36),” says Jones about the defending Olympic champion. “But you can’t ignore the Korean Lee Bong-Ju,” he adds. The Bangkok Asian Games Champion has clocked 2:07.20 this season and should be a strong contender for the title. He was also second behind Pinto in Atlanta and on Sunday, it would be a revenge race for him.

“If home advantage has anything to do, watch out for Steve Moneghetti,” says Jones. One of the most experienced runners in tomorrow’s race, Moneghetti was fifth in Seoul Olympics in 1988 and third in the Commonwealth Games at Kuala Lumpur two years ago. With the season’s best of 2:10, he should be aiming to finish among the medallists.

There are 12 Asians in the fray, including one each from Sri Lanka and Qatar. And Jones fails to understand why India has not sent any.

“I remember your Singh (Shivnath) ran so well in Montreal Olympics how come you don’t have runners this time?” Jones asks.“You don’t need any infrastructure for marathon running. I think India can produce any number of world-class marathon runners,” he says.

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Why British standards in marathon running has gone down so much?

“Easy life,” he says. “No one is ready to take pains to train hard thesedays,” he says.

How much can he clock now if he was to run marathon in a competition?

“Oh, difficult to say. But a few months ago I ran 2:38 in Barbados. May be I can do 2:30 and I will be happy,” he said as a matter of fact.

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Before I could fathom where will Jones finish among Indian runners with that kind of timings he was off the train. “I am going back to run. I have to do 20-km today,” he said with a chuckle.

No wonder he was a celebrated runner.