Athletics: Thompson fails but is defiant

DURING summer months, nightfall is delayed until the early hours in this ancient Viking capital. Daley Thompson, attempting a similar resistance to the encroaching forces of age and injury yesterday struggled through four-tenths of a decathlon in its chill environs before deciding that discretion was the better part of valour. But the old warrior, who needs to score an A qualifying mark of 7,850 points by this Friday if he is to fight one last battle in a fifth Olympic Games, maintains that he lives to fight another day - or rather, two days.

Having managed at least to come through his exertions intact following the shoulder injury which devastated his Olympic preparations late in May, the 33- year-old world record holder plans to have one last attempt later this week at completing what would be his first decathlon since the Seoul Games of four years ago. Spain is the likely venue, although he did not rule Britain out.

Whatever happens, this time there will be no further shifting of goalposts. While the British board were able to move the qualifying date back, first from the official decathlon trials and then from the main Olympic trials, 10 July is a fixed Olympic deadline for entry.

'I can do the qualifying score given a nice day or two' said Thompson, a far chirpier figure at the end of the day than the grim-faced striver who began it. He seemed genuinely relieved to have come through his first competitive action in over a year without aggravating his injury. But his less than healthy score of 2973 points after four events - his worst start to a decathlon since he was 17 - led some observers to believe that his chirpiness cannot be sustained beyond the week.

Alex Kruger, whose own first day score of 4022pts put him in line to earn late Olympic qualification himself, said he felt Thompson had humiliated himself. Kruger, admittedly, is no friend of the former Olympic champion's as his scathing remarks about the leeway given to him by the selectors have made clear in recent weeks.

But there was something strange and almost sad in seeing a man who could - and did - claim to be the world's greatest athlete, trudging about an empty echoing stadium and having to be grateful for performances which did not approach his heady standards of past years.

'Trondheim on Trent' as the decathletes have named it, just 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle was seasonally warm - but a temperature of below 50 degrees Fahrenheit and a chilling wind made it an inhospitable environment for a man seeking to unfreeze his joints after weeks of enforced inactivity.

In a stadium normally filled by 20,000 for the home matches of the resident soccer team Rosenberg, who lost to Sampdoria in this year's European Cup, Thompson began his day watched by three bona fide spectators - Jon and Guri Eidsvik, and their dog Titus. The dog, a Gordon setter of Scottish origin had a problem with the starting gun - once he heard it go he whimpered to be allowed to search for grouse.

Thompson's own search appeared similarly futile as he crossed the line leadenly in 11.18 sec for the 100 metres. Worse was to come. In the long jump, traditionally his best event, he failed to reach seven metres, fouling with a longer looking last attempt and having to settle for 6.48.

'I could have got away with 11.2,' he said. 'I could have got away with 6.80. But the long jump was 30-40 centimetres less than I figured I could do.'

He recovered slightly with his shot put, winning the competition with 14.57 metres and then high- jumped 188. But at that point he realised that to reach his target score of 4,000 points for the first day would require a personal best of 45.64 for the 400 metres. As he pointed out, in such conditions, even Roger Black would have been struggling to manage that.

So out he came - 'If I actually go completely mad and decide to do another decathlon later in the week somewhere a little bit warmer I didn't want to be completely knackered' - and on he goes. Is the pursuit in vain? 'I still know I can do a job' he said.

(Photograph omitted)