PEOPLE IN THE PLAY

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28750, 22 November 1958, Page 5

PEOPLE IN THE PLAY

W. J. Whineray, the All Black captain, will probably

A lay n f ° r thc Gramm a r club in

Auckland next Rugby season. He is in Rotorua at present but will be transferred to Auckland in J a n u a r y. Grammar is Whineray’s old club for which he played before he moved from Auckland

Bill Richards had ample reason last Saturday to be satisfied with the progress he is making on his new programme with Mr V. Briedis. Although the New Zealand senior titles are still nearly four months away, he ran an excellent 84min 31sec in the 15-mile road race. The time was his second best for the distance and only 15sec short of his best. Richards appeared a more polished runner. moving with greater ease and lightness than before. An interested spectator at a recent inter-club athletic meeting at Rugby Park was Mr K. Beardsley, who represented this country at the 1950 Empire Games as a sprinter in his first season as a senior. Mr Beardsley returned from Cardiff earlier this year after holding a teachers’ exchange position there for a period. Mr Beardsley missed seeing the Empire Games, however, as his term of duty at Cardiff had expired before then and he was unable to prolong his visit. Although he has beaten lOsec for the 100 yards, the best was not seen of Beardsley as an athlete for he gave up serious competition about a year after competing at the Games.

Eighteen-year-old Michele Mason equalled the Australian resident high jump record of sft 6in at an inter-club meeting in Sydney recently. The New Zealand decathlon champion and Empire Games representative. Roy Williams, of Auckland, has been handicapped this season with a badly cracked shin bone. He wiil undergo an operation for the injury, but in the meantime intends to carry on with decathlon and hop. step and jump training.

The present New Zealand women’s diving champion and former Jugoslavian towerdiving champion. Miss Esta Paunovic, will retire from the sport this season. Miss Paunovic, who is 24, will be married on January 17. ★ One of Canterbury’s finest post-war tennis players. W. J. Smith, showed that he lost

only a little of his ability and guile when, with M. C. Healey, he won the men’s doubles champions hip at the show tou r n a m e n t last week-end. Smith retired from club, ranking and

provincial tennis in 1955. In a period of weak Canterbury tennis he'was the only one who could measure up to the best in other provinces. He is still a most attractive ground stroke player. ★ Miss Valerie Sloper is still finding her athletic performances handicapped by an ankle injury which has been troubling her for nearly three weeks. Miss Sloper first injured her ankle when she stumbled in a small hole during a hurdle race and later, before she had recovered from the first injury, she wrenched the ankle a second time while competing in a shot put.