track over the coming weeks.

Five of Austria's top sprinters arrived in Bermuda on Saturday and will be here until December 27 on a six-week training camp designed to prepare them for upcoming competition.

And local sprinters will get the opportunity to pick up a few tips when the relay team holds clinics here prior to their departure.

The Austrians make up the best European sprint team, as well as the best club relay team in Europe. But the 4x100 and 4x400-metre relay champions are not content to sit back on that reputation as they will be working hard in preparation for the Indoor European Championships in Valencia, Spain, in late February.

The sprinters -- Martin Lachkovics, 22, Rafik Elouardi, 27, Andreas Rechbauer, 27, Gerhard Wagner, 21, and Lorenz Pipal, 22, will be training under coach Peter Duerer.

And while Bermuda was chosen because of its climate at this time of the year -- Austria is covered in snow -- the athletes are not here for fun and relaxation as their training schedule indicates. They have a mandatory 7 a.m.

breakfast, to be followed by a two-hour rest period and then mandatory training for another two-and-a-half hours. After a shower and lunch the athletes will rest again for two hours before another training session of between two-and-a-half and three hours. That will be followed by dinner and a half-hour to three-quarter hour light workout.

"They will be training three weeks very hard and one week of relaxing for recuperation,'' explained Duerer through interpreter Leopold Kuchler of the Consul of Austria in Bermuda.

The long term goal of the team is the 2000 Olympics; in fact the mission has already been dubbed "Sydney 2000.'' "We wish to bring from Sydney a medal,'' said Duerer, the Austrian national sprint coach since 1994.

"Until Sydney there is nothing else we are focussed on...one team, one goal.'' The team endured disappointment in Atlanta last year when the 4x100 metre anchor runner suffered a serious Achilles tendon injury.

Lochkovics is the best 100-metre sprinter in Austria while Rechbauer was seventh in the 400 metres at the Student World Championships this year. He was rated the best European athlete at those games. The Austria 4x400 team placed fifth in the 1997 Indoor Worlds in Paris and ninth in the World Championships in Athens, Greece.

The team's training methods have been patterned after the Santa Monica Track Club, which had American sprinters Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell, Mike Marsh and Tim Montgomery training and competing together. The idea is to have their top sprinters, who come from various parts of the country, working together under the same coach.

Local sprinters will see the success of that during the clinics, which the Austrians are hoping to arrange towards the end of their stint in Bermuda.

"Through the Department of Education and Gerry Swan, the national coach, as well as local running clubs, they want to do clinics with Bermuda students and other athletes,'' said Kuchler.

"These clinics will be run at a few levels, secondary level, college level and club level and will involve athletes like Devon Bean, Donte Hunt and Atiba Tucker. They want to finish the clinics with a competition. It's not finalised but they are looking forward to establishing a great opportunity for local runners.'' Said coach Duerer: "The children can train with the athletes for a period and get an understanding of and feeling for this type of high-calibre athlete.'' The team has been to various other locations for winter training and is looking for a permanent venue to train. So far they like what they see of Bermuda, especially Horseshoe Beach, whose soft sand is ideal for running. As well they are training at the National Stadium and also in a gym for weight training.

"After the second day, it looks like there might be a future for them in Bermuda,'' said Kuchler, a Bermuda resident himself for more than 25 years.

BEACH BOYS-Austrian sprinters enjoy a training session yesterday, From left are coach Peter Duerer Rafik Elouardi, Martin Lachkovics, Andreas Rechbauer, Gerhard Wagner, Lorenz Pipal.