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August 20, 2004 10:53 am

Nunn fades to 26th in 20K walk

By ELLIOTT DENMAN

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - John Nunn set a hot early pace and was the number one U.S. competitor past the halfway post of the Olympic 20-kilometer racewalk Friday on the roads outside Olympic Stadium.

But the heat - of both the racing tempo and the morning sun - took its toll.

Nunn, a 1996 graduate of Evansville's Harrison High School who now competes for the U.S. Army's World Class Athlete Program, slowed to a 45:13 final 10 kilometers, after going through his first 10K in 42:25, and ended up 26th with a time of 1:27.38.

``The pace felt comfortable, I could even have gone faster; I thought I'd be able to maintain it,'' said Nunn.

``Then, when Tim and Kevin (USA teammates Tim Seaman and Kevin Eastler) moved up on me, I wanted to go with them.

``But they were too strong over the second half.''

Forty-eight walkers representing 28 nations set out on their 12.4-mile mission at 9 a.m. Long-shot Ivano Brugnetti of Italy won the gold medal in 1:19:40.

Spain's Francisco Fernandez was 25 meters behind in second place with a time of 1:19:45. Australia's Nathan Deakes snared the bronze in 1:20:02, holding off the strong pre-race favorite Jefferson Perez of Ecuador, the 1996 Olympic champion and gold medalist at the 2003 World Championships in Paris.

Seaman and Eastler were last out of the stadium at the start and walked in tandem almost the whole way. That more conservative pace paid off in a big way.

Seaman, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Parkside, was 20th in 1:25:17, the fastest ever for an American in Olympic competition.

Eastler, an Air Force captain and Air Force Academy graduate was 21st in 1:25:20.

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