Heffernan pleased with Mexico display

ROBERT HEFFERNAN will train at altitude in South Africa for his next big assignment which is IAAF Race Walking Cup in Cheboksary, Russia, on May 10, following what he described as “a good, strong performance” in Mexico at the weekend.

The Togher athlete duplicated his world championship placing when he finished sixth in the first race-walking Grand Prix of the year in Chihuahua in a time of 1:23:45 but that time does not reflect the significance of the performance which had him just three seconds behind the world champion, Jefferson Perez (Ecuador).

The 20k race was won by local hero, Eder Sanchez, in 1:22:53 from Juan Manuel Molina (Spain), 1:23:06 and Erick Tysse (Norway), 1:23:13.

The sensation of the race came at half way when Spain’s world and Olympic silver medallist, Francisco Javier Fernandez, dropped out with stomach problems and that had a telling affect on Heffernan’s display.

“My whole race plan centred around “Paco,” he said. “My plan was to go with him when he made his break but then, at half way, he dropped out and all that changed.

“At 15k there was a big group of 15 walkers together and that was most unusual in a race of this calibre. I was tucked in behind Perez and watching him and then, suddenly, the group split and we became detached from the leaders so, from that point of view, it was disappointing the way things went.”

But he admitted he was delighted with the performance under the circumstances. For the three days before the race in Chihuahua he was sneezing and what appeared to be some kind of an allergy turned out to be a virus.

“As a result of that I was not 100% going into the race so was I was very happy to finish where I did and this was my best ever performance at altitude so that was encouraging.”

He will arrive back in Cork today for a break before heading off to South Africa for a training camp at altitude in advance of the Russian assignment in May.

Supported by the home crowd, Eder Sanchez (21) held off the challenge of Spain’s 2005 Helsinki world championships bronze medallist, Juan Manuel Molina, and Norway’s Erik Tysse to win the 20k race in 1:22:53, 13 seconds ahead of the Spanish. The Norwegian was third with 1:23:13.

Then, on Sunday, Jesus Sanchez, posted his best ever performance to win the 50k walk and complete a double for Mexico in 3:52:36 which was over four minutes faster than his previous best.

The world champion, Jefferson Perez, said he was focused on helping his team mate, Ronaldo Saquipay, achieve the Olympic A standard but Saquipay fell 18 seconds short of that mark.

The revelation of the day was Pedro Gómez, 17, who finished seventh in 1:24:11, just over a minute from the Olympic mark, after dominating the junior 10k race on Friday in which he recorded a personal best of 41:58.52