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August 27, 2004 1:30 pm

Clausen 32nd in 50k racewalk

By ELLIOTT DENMAN

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - In his third, and possibly last Olympics, Curt Clausen finished 32nd in Friday's 50-kilometer racewalk.

The 36-year-old Stevens Point (Wis.) High School and Duke University grad, has been America's best racewalker for most of the last decade.

In a field of 53 walkers gathered from 28 nations and five continents, Clausen finished in four hours, 11 minutes and 31 seconds for this 31.1-mile assignment.

Robert Korzeniowski of Poland, 36, won with a time of 3:38:46.

It was his third consecutive victory in the Olympic 50K and he finished just 17 seconds off the Olympic record of 3:38:28 set by Vyascheslv Ivanenko of the Soviet Union in 1988.

The 50K event - longest and toughest footrace on the Olympic Games program - proved absolutely brutal to Clausen and all but a few others. Even Spiridon Kastais, the lone walker from Greece, couldn't get past the 35-kilometer mark.

The event was one of the few times that Clausen finished in over four hours. His five-year-old American record stands at 3:48:04.

``There was a lot of pain,'' said Clausen.

``In the 50K, that's just something you have to be willing to cope with.''Thanks to an assortment of injuries and some surgeries, though, he'd missed some vital time in previous years and was unable to recoup the lost ground.

``The mental part was tough, too,'' he said. ``When I got those two red cards early (for technique violations, before he reached 20K) I had to back off. That was hard.

``But you know there's no place I'd rather be than right here.

``Competing in the Olympic Games, for your country, there's nothing greater than that.''

Clausen had placed 22nd in the 2000 Sydney Olympic 50K, and 50th at 20K at the 1996 Atlanta Games, but the 2008 Beijing Games may be a long shot.

``It's time for me to go from being a full-time athlete to being a full-time law school student (at Wisconsin-Madison,)'' he said.

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