' I would tell them to forget Mexico. Athletes could be playing with

their lives. '

AN ill-conceived decision has taken a major athletics championships

back to Mexico City where the 1968 Olympics made the sport a mockery.

Endurance runners had to be given oxygen. Ron Clarke, the greatest

distance runner ever, literally tore his heart apart. Sprinters and

jumpers made a joke of the record books. DOUG GILLON assesses the height

of athletics folly revisited.

FOR many over the age of 35, the most memorable sight in the history

of Scottish athletics was not that of Allan Wells storming to the Moscow

Olympic 100 metres title, but of Lachie Stewart sprinting past multi

world record breaker Ron Clarke for Commonwealth gold in Edinburgh.

Though Clarke set 18 world bests, Stewart's feat on the Meadowbank

tartan in 1970 ensured that the Australian hung up his spikes without a

major championship victory. But Lachie's moment of triumph might have

been denied had Clarke not figuratively and literally broken his heart

in the rarified air of Mexico two years earlier.

Clarke had to be given oxygen on crossing the line at the end of the

Olympic 10,000m. This week he was emphatic that the effort damaged the

mitral valve of his heart. Less than a year after racing Stewart, Clarke

failed a routine medical for an insurance policy, and he is alive today

thanks only to sophisticated surgery.

Yet the International Amateur Athletics Federation this week scorned

the significant lessons of the 1968 Olympic Games, and decided that the

1997 World Championships again would be staged 7300 feet up. The IAAF

excuse that there was no other candidate is thinner than the polluted

Mexico City air.

Perhaps the person most disgusted -- but least surprised -- is Clarke.

''I thought the IAAF might be improving, but this goes right back to

my era,'' said Clarke, speaking from Sydney. ''They are as unconcerned

today with the well-being of competitors as they were then. They care

only about their own posturing and purse. They still don't give a

continental about the athletes. They've learned nothing.

''If I were coaching any top class endurance runner, I would tell them

to forget Mexico City. They would be mad to go. They could be playing

with their lives.''

African athletes in the sixties were not the dominant force which they

are today. But they won the 1500m, 5000m, and 10,000m, marathon, and

steeplechase. In Clarke's 10,000m, they swept all the medals. The

Australian finished sixth, in a time two minutes slower than he had run

in London a fortnight earlier.

He collapsed on crossing the line, but was ignored by paramedics

carrying oxygen cylinders. Clarke came round to find his friend, Doctor

Brian Corrigan, kneeling over him weeping and cursing, and holding a

mask to his face.

''Brian was not supposed to be on the infield. But he knew there was

something seriously wrong. He saw me turn from white to green, and

jumped the moat. He had police hanging all over him, but he grabbed

oxygen off one of the guys, and put the mask on me.

''He says I came very close to death. I am completely certain that is

where my heart was damaged.''

During the Games, a team of Soviet doctors assessed Clarke and

professed him to be ''physiologically perfect.''

Clark lost only 25 races out of 500. ''But after Mexico, I was

pathetic. I never ran well again. That race in Edinburgh was a real

struggle.

''Shortly afterwards, I went for an insurance medical. The doctor

almost wasn't going to lay his stethoscope on me. But they were dynamite

on these checks. 'I suppose I had better examine you -- God, you've a

murmer and a half there!'

''Even then I could not believe I had a leaky valve. It was flapping

in the wind. Only one litre of blood in five was going where it should.

My normal resting pulse was 28 to 32 beats per minutes, great for

running, but with the valve defective it was like taking a brick out of

a dyke. The blood was surging through.''

Surgery in 1981 gave Clarke a reprieve. Now he runs three miles a day:

''Very slowly -- eight-minute miles, and it's no easy jog. But I'm

alive.''

Clarke's best-kept secret is that he at last has that elusive

championship gold. Emil Zatopek gave him one of the three medals he won

in the 1952 Olympics. The Czech took the Helsinki 5000m and 10,000m

titles, plus the marathon. ''When I was leaving Czechoslovakia, Emil

came out to the plane. Nobody was allowed to do that then. He shook

hands, pressed something into my hand, then left.

''I thought I was smuggling something out for him, and only when I was

out of Czech airspace did I look to see what it was. Medals were not

inscribed in these days, but I like to think it's the one for the 10,000

metres.''

In regular demand as a commentator, Clarke vows: ''I would not dream

of going back to Mexico. It won't be a real world event -- it will be

the Kenyan championships.''

Clarke was not the sole Mexico victim. World 1500m record holder Jim

Ryun, unbeaten at the distance for three years, finished second to Kip

Keino. ''Ryun was five seconds better than Keino by then,'' said Clarke.

''But Keino made him look a fool.''

The sprints and jumps will also be devalued, artificially aided by the

thin air. It took 23 years for Bob Beamon's freak 1968 long jump to be

surpassed, 20 to lower the 400m record, and world bests were also set at

100m (lasted 19 years at sea level), 200m (15 years), and sprint hurdles

(four years). Wind enhanced performances are banned. So, too, should

altitude ones. Air-brushed records present a false picture.

British athletes such as London Marathon winner Eamonn Martin have

stated they will not go to Mexico. Liz McColgan said yesterday: ''I

don't fancy the idea, but it's too early to decide.''

The issue is certain to provoke requests for world endurance titles to

be withdrawn from the Mexico event and distributed to grand prix

meetings next summer. British coaches will discuss the problem this

weekend.

UK coaching director Frank Dick, president of the European Coaches

Association, said: ''My colleagues in Europe are horrified. This is not

a responsible decision.

''In 1968 the African nations were not particularly well organised.

Now, they are well developed. The first nine in the world 5000m this

year were Africans.

''If altitude helps like that at sea level, what does it do to them

racing at altitude? We are honour-bound to try and help British athletes

prepare, but I know they will be demolished. The bill will be

astronomical. A couple of weeks at altitude is no use. We are talking

months. It will be desperately expensive -- it's just not

cost-effective.

''We will gather all the relevant data, and if it suggests there are

risks, then clearly it would be irresponsible of me not to warn the

federation against exposing our runners.''