There was never any doubt who would win this week's Marathon Derby, among men or women.

Kavin Smith and Anna Eatherley have been such dominant forces on the road running scene for so long that the results were a foregone conclusion as soon as their entries were received.

And the convincing margin of victory, in both divisions, simply confirmed that Kavin and Anna are a class apart.

While both would have liked to have run a tad faster, and picked up the $5,000 bonus offered by a local sports store -- surprisingly, in Kavin's case, not for establishing a new record but for a time seemingly plucked out of thin air -- there was little chance that would happen once the day dawned hot, humid and uncomfortably sticky.

Anybody who completed the trek from Somerset to Hamilton will tell you that this year was no joy ride.

Yet the two defending champions made it look just that.

Smith's victory, however, was the more significant and will be even moreso should he, as expected, repeat the feat in a year's time.

Win number six equalled the Marathon Derby record held by Ed Sherlock and Smith now gets his chance to stand alone in the May 24 record books.

Before then, however, there's a small matter of the Olympics.

And perhaps nobody would be more deserving of a ticket to Sydney come September than the 33-year-old, who has continually shown his willingness to improve despite a dire lack of local competition.

The benefits of altitude training in New Mexico recently weren't all too apparent on Wednesday, but not too much can be read into Smith's finishing time of 1:09.36.

In conditions more conducive to distance running, on a course with fewer rolling hills, and most importantly with some serious rivalry, that time could easily translate to 1:07 or better.

And with two hours, 20 minutes set as the Olympic qualifying time -- for a distance slightly less than twice the Derby route -- Smith must feel he has a realistic chance of accomplishing that goal when he travels to Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, next month.

By international standards the Sydney qualifying time might be seen as slightly `soft' -- the current world record is 2:05 -- but nobody in Bermuda has ever run that fast over the 26.2 mile distance.

It would be fitting if Smith could become the first and earn his spot on the Sydney start line.

*** STILL on the Olympics, it was good to see sailors Peter Bromby and Lee White secure their berth on the team with another impressive performance at the Nautica Star World Championships last week.

Sydney will mark their third successive appearance at the Games following regattas in Barcelona and Atlanta. Despite that experience, they probably won't be considered medal contenders ... which should suit them just fine.

As Bromby and White showed with a second place in last week's final race -- in a fleet of more than a 100 -- on any given day they can test the best.

Hopefully, that day will come Down Under.

-- ADRIAN ROBSON