GIRL SWIMMERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 29, 4 February 1928, Page 17

GIRL SWIMMERS.

CHAMPION NEW ZEALANDERS

TOUR OF AUSTRALIA. BRIGHT PROSPECTS. (By Tele~rapli.—Own Cc respondent.) , DUNEDIN, this day. The doings of Miss Kathleen Miller, champion middlo distance swimmer of New Zealand, will be watched with great interest while she is ip Australia, and if she maintains her form she should register something startling in the way of times over all distances from 220 yds to 880 yds. There is not the least doubt that the Otago girl is improving all the time, for her times in the recent championship meeting were better than those sho returned in salt water at Auckland last year. So far as the 400 metres distance is concerned, it seems certain that Miss Miller will make a great showing against tlio world's best, for one of the greatest features of her swimming is her grim and dogged fighting spirit. She uses an almost perfect six-beat crawl, and even if she has been forcing the race throughout she always seems able to make a dashing spurt at the end. Rapid Rise to Primacy. Throughout her career Miss Miller has been associated with the Kiwi Club, of which she is at present ladies' club captain. Her swimming talent was unearthed by Mr. E. Holds, who is now coaching a big club in California. Her first notable victory was achieved at Napier in 1920, when she won the 220 yds intermediate girls' championship in 2m 57 2-ss. Since then she has not looked back, and her improvement in the latter half of the present season is really remarkable, in view of the fact that for some time she was showing little of her best form. Miss Stockley's Form. On performances, none of the swimming nominees for selection in the New Zealand Olympic team appears to have a better chance of success than Miss Ena Stockley, the great Auckland backstroke exponent. At free style swimming it was only this year that Miss Stockley's supremacy over 100 yds was seriously challenged, and even then she managed to win the title for the fourth successive time, in 68 4-ss, which constituted a New Zealand fresh water record. Her salt water record is 65 3-as. The world's record is 60 4-ss, but this was established in a pool 25yds long. Miss Stockley may not be quite as good over 100 yds as she was a year or two ago, but at the backstroke she can be classed as the champion of champions, and her 1m 26 2-5s for the 150 yds back stroke is 6uch as to justify the belief that she will extend to the utmost the world's best in this style of swimming. Her performances against the great Australian backstroke exponent, Miss Bonnie Mealing, in the next few weeks, will reveal just how good the New Zealander is in outside competition, for Australian critics are already hailing Miss Mealing as one of the world's greatest backstroke swimmers.

ON THEIR WAY TO SYDNEY. To try their speed against Australia's best, the two New Zealand lady swimming champions, Miss Ena Stockley (Auckland) and Miss Kathleen Miller (Dunedin) left Wellington for Australia by the Maunganui yesterday. They were accompanied by Mrs. A. Miller, who will act as chaperone. The New Zealanders will compete in the 100 yds championship at the N.S.W. meeting at Sydney on February 11, while Miss Miller will also start in the 440 yds race. They will later compete in the Australian championships at Melbourne and also at meetings at Brisbane.