Oakes still calls the shots

THE indoor training arena at the National Sports Centre, Crystal Palace, seems to have been under attack by heavy artillery. There are cracks in the windows, wires hanging from the ceiling, scars on the walls and fearful dents in the metal rims of the overhead lights. But the chief perpetrator of the damage is not a battery of howitzers but a 5ft 4in woman who stands in a circle marked on the arena floor, weapon in hand: Judy Oakes, Britain's best woman shot putter over the last 20 years, and chief vandaliser of the nation's sporting facilities.

On 27 January Oakes, who is 37, will add another honour to her illustrious record when she makes her 73rd international appearance for Britain, passing the record achieved by Verona Elder, who is now Britain's team manager. "It's wonderful to set a record," Oakes said between putts last week. "But the best thing about this one is that it might show some of the younger athletes that there is still something special about competing for Great Britain, rather than competing in spectacular stadiums for a pile of money."

Oakes is a national treasure who feels, with good reason, that she has been undervalued by the sport she has served for so long. Her record is astonishing: 35 national titles, medals at the last five Commonwealth Games, fourth in the 1984 Olympics, nearly 50 appearances in national championships in athletics, powerlifting and weightlifting. And yet still working as a self-employed administrator, grafting to support her training. "I've always said that if I'd been a middle-distance runner I'd have been a multi- millionaire by now," she said. But she is quick to point out that she lives in the real world. "There are anomalies in all professions: secretaries do all the work in multinational companies and bosses get all the money."

It's not an argument you would want to run past Lord Hanson, but it proves that Oakes is no self-centred whinger: she is concerned about the lack of incentives for any younger athletes to follow her path. "I'm worried that nobody else is coming through," she said. "How come I can come back after two years away and still be the best?"

Those two years away from athletics were Oakes' premature retirement, brought about by the same lack of recognition that she laments now. "She wasn't getting the attention she deserved," Mike Winch, her long-time coach, recalled. "And that was demoralising. But she's back now - and stronger than ever."

The original comeback target, a second Commonwealth Games gold medal, 12 years after her first, was achieved in Victoria. But then she thought she might as well carry on, and at the start of this year, according to Winch, turned her attention to the Olympics. "We thought, if it is going to be the last year, let's make it a superb last year."

So back to the pitted bunker at Crystal Palace for 20 hours a week, lifting weights, sprinting and launching those bombs. "We went through a water pipe on the ceiling once," Oakes gleefully remembered. "Hot water, too - it took them two hours to work out which tap to turn off, and eight months to dry out the pole-vault landing mats."

All jolly fun, but an example of the dangers of underfunding in field athletics. The shot- putters train in a narrow space next to pole-vaulters and triple-jumpers, and although they always shout "heads up" before launching, accidents do happen. Indoor shots are just as heavy as the outdoor ones, if slightly softer. Oakes got one on the head recently. "Not too bad," she laughed, pantomiming wobbly legs. "A glancing blow."

Mishaps are not confined to Crystal Palace. Practising at home in Croydon the night before the national championships, she forgot to hang on to the shot she was holding and nearly brought the house down. "Luckily I won the championship the next day and my father was able to show off the hole in the wall as a memento."

Interview over, she took her place in the shot-putt circle, and was suddenly back in her private world. Shot in her left hand, wobbling her right to relax it, she took a couple of paces across the circle and set herself. Swapping the shot to her right hand she lodged it in the side of her neck and, with her left hand, completed the ritual of sweeping her hair out of the way. Then she flexed her right leg, extended her left high behind her, and exploded across the circle, sending the shot arcing over the single training shoes on the floor that marked the forlorn efforts of the youngsters training with her, to bounce against the beams protecting the triple-jump pit. She walked out of the circle, stretching her limbs. "I don't make so much fuss about crowded facilities these days," she smiled. "I'm nearly finished." Nearly, but not quite.