Heffernan head wrecked by Diniz’s record pace

The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. Robert Heffernan had only one plan in the 50km race walk on the streets of Zurich yesterday: to win gold.

When he saw that goal slipping from view at the halfway point — as Frenchman Yohann Diniz churned out a world record pace — his race soon began to unravel. His spirit broken, Heffernan stepped off the course at the 37km mark.

“I feel as if I was beaten up,” said a disconsolate Heffernan. “I was just broken. It broke my spirit, it broke me mentally. I didn’t have the same feeling when I came through in Barcelona and in London and Moscow. All the control was taken away from me.”

The two Russians, Ivan Noskov and Mikhail Ryzhov, set out on a fast early pace with Diniz in hot pursuit as Heffernan expected.

“I knew they were going [the Russians] to go out and Yohann too, I predicted that,” said Heffernan, who thought it was playing into his hands. What he couldn’t have predicted was that Diniz would spilt km times of 4:16 and then up the pace again to 4:06 — eventually recording a new world record of 3:32:33.

To put the Frenchman’s record into perspective, he was operating at 6:50 per mile pace — 2:59:22 for the marathon.

“When I heard he was dropping 4:06 a kilometre and he wasn’t slowing up, I knew the gold was gone,” said Heffernan.

“My tactics were wrong,” he said. “My tactics were wrong mentally as well. If I approached the race differently and I wanted to do it my own way maybe I’d have come through.

“Obviously I wouldn’t have won today because there is nothing you can do when somebody walks 3:32 and I wasn’t capable of doing that.”

Matej Toth of Slovakia came through for second in a new national record of 3:36:21 while Noskov walked to a new personal best of 3:37:41. Matching his personal best of 3:37:54 would only have placed Heffernan fourth.

The Corkman’s dream was crushed. A different colour medal other than gold didn’t appeal to the Togher athlete, who had been third at one stage.

“I didn’t want third,” he said with his retrospective bronze from the European championships in Barcelona on the way. “Even when I was in third it didn’t appeal to me. When I was told [a couple of weeks ago] I had the medal from Barcelona that box was ticked.”

The 50km race walk is a gruelling event and a constant battle with the mind. It has made many a strong man crumble. Diniz has been where Heffernan was yesterday. At the Beijing Olympics in 2008 he dropped out. At the world championships in Berlin in 2009 he cracked and finished back in 12th.

“I wanted gold, maybe I was wrong,” said Heffernan of dropping out. “I’ll have to think about it afterwards. I’ll have to think about it moving forward.”

Physically Heffernan was fine. His heart rate, which he measures throughout the race, was at its regular beat but there is no measuring tool for the mind.

“It was my head,” he conceded. “I was working through cues. It’s not as if I threw in the towel. I kept working. I said I’d get to 30km. Got to 35km and then said to myself ‘no this is not happening’.

“I should have concentrated on what I was capable of doing today and not what he [Diniz] was doing. I’ll have to learn again.”