The Saturday Interview - Andy Neild meets Sydney 2000 marathon hopeful DAVE LEWIS

AN ACHILLES' heel.

Everybody has one.

For Stan Collymore it's stress, for Paul Gascoigne it's drink, and for Paul Merson it used to be drugs.

Whatever the sport, however big the star, most sportsmen and women possess one weakness, one imperfection, which prevents them from reaching the very peak of their powers.

The phrase stems from the classics.

Achilles, a Greek hero in The Illiad, was invulnerable except in the foot.

And Dave Lewis is no exception.

The Rossendale Harrier has one failing which has so far prevented him from writing his own name in a history book. . .an Achilles problem.

But that's not his only connection with the ancient Greeks. Now 37, he is hoping to defy the ageing process and become an Olympian at Sydney in 2000. And, what's more, he wants to do it in a new event - the marathon.

Lewis's CV reads more like a roll of honour: Six English Schools titles. UK steeplechase, 10,000m, and AAA 5,000 metres champion. And three times national cross-country champion.

They're just a few of the titles he has managed to accrue over the years. Had it not been for persistent injury problems - which have dogged him throughout the 90s - it would surely have been many more.

But despite being one of the finest athletes of his generation, he has never appeared at the Olympics.

There have been times when he has come close. In 1984, Dave Moorcroft was struggling with a pelvic injury and Lewis looked all set to get the nod for Los Angeles. "I had a couple of races against him that year and he beat me a couple of times but there was only ever a few metres in it so I'd proved my fitness.

"Dave got injured but they sent him anyway and he finished last in the final and got lapped off everybody.

"I was gutted."

Then four years later he became the UK 10,000m champion and looked odds on for Seoul.

But the team was selected off the AAA championships a month later, where he didn't perform quite as well, and he missed the boat again.

Two setbacks like that would knock the stuffing out of most people.

But Lewis isn't the type to wallow and, provided he can overcome his latest injury problems, he still believes he can achieve his goal.

Throughout his career, he has always demonstrated his amazing versatility by competing over a variety of distances in all kinds of conditions.

Either on the track, the road, and particularly across country, the Haslingden-born athlete is undoubtedly one of the most talented distance runners this country has produced.

His three national cross-country titles take pride of place in his memory banks and only a handful of runners have ever won four, the last of which was in 1904.

It's a feat he is immensely proud of although he fervently believes it could have been more.

"It's very special to win a national cross country title and I've been fortunate enough to win three of them.

"Steve Ovett and Dave Moorcroft have always said it's been their ambition to win it because it's such a prestigious blue ribbon event. And, but for injuries over the last few years, I think I could have won another three as well.

Yet in 17 years at the top, he has only ever competed in one marathon. That was in New York in 1992 where he finished a very impressive seventh with a time of 2hrs 13.49.

Now he is hoping to extend his career, possibly into his 40s, by becoming a marathon man.

And, like a fine wine, Lewis is hoping he can get better with age.

"That certainly seems to be the case in marathon running.

"I think Carlos Lopez was 37 or 38 when he won Olympic gold and quite a lot of the distance runners in this country are guys in their late 30s who are doing really well.

"One member of the English Commonwealth team was 41 at last summer's Games.

"It's down to attitude really and what you believe in yourself.

"But it's the type of event where you need a lot of experience anyway.

"In marathon running you're not necessarily racing against people, you're racing against the distance.

"The objective is to survive and get back in one piece.

"Once you get beyond a certain limit and you know you are safe then you can start racing.

"There's physical and mental limits and that's where your experience comes in and tells you how far to push them."

And it's that same experience which is telling him to hold back now.

Unlike another local distance runner, the legendary Ron Hill, who has been known to get off his hospital bed to run and keep his streak alive, Lewis is adopting the more cautious approach.

After winning the Lancashire cross-country Championships in January this year, his Achilles problem has struck again, forcing him to cut back on training over the last six or seven weeks. Usually, he runs over 100 miles a week, most of it on the fells surrounding his Haslingden home.

But he doesn't want to run the risk of jeopardising what will be his last chance of a crack at the Olympics by pushing himself too far, too soon.

"You shouldn't run a marathon - especially at the top level - until you are in absolutely tip-top shape.

"That's why I haven't run one since New York.

"But I'm hoping to run one in the autumn just to get the feel again.

"And if that's successful then I'll run London in 12 months time from where they'll probably pick a couple of places for Sydney."

In the meantime, he'll split his time between training and his job as manager of an indoor and outdoor pursuits centre run by Age Concern for the over 50s.

And Lewis is already making provisions for the time when he has to stop running seriously.

He still believes he has four or five years left in him at international level.

But in his spare time, he attends an evening course in massage with the aim of becoming a qualified remedial masseur when the time comes to retire.

"I enjoy it, it's good.

"At the moment it's all theory and we've not done all that much practical stuff as such.

"But it just seems like the natural thing to do.

"Having had a lot of injury problems myself I can relate to people's situations."

I wonder if Achilles injuries are a speciality?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.