PEOPLE IN THE PLAY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29058, 21 November 1959, Page 5

PEOPLE IN THE PLAY

The All Black three-quarter, R. F. McMullen, showed great form in his first track appearance at Auck- ■ii ■"■•inii ■■■ ‘ • land recently. Running from scratch, McMullen won his division of the 50 yards in s.saec, only O.lsec slower than the Star- ’ —- ges Park record established by the former world 100 yards co-holder, H. Hogan, of Australia. McMullen intends to confine' his athletic activities to the 50 yards and 100 yards until he begins Rugby training early next year. ★ The Canterbury and New Zealand long-distance ' swimming champion and titleholder, CoUn McFadden, seems set for another season of record breaking. McFadden broke the Canterbury 220 yards freestyle record at the first carnival of the season conducted by the Canterbury swimming centre, and seems likely to lower the other provincial marks as soon as the opportunity offers. McFadden will ■ probably go to Auckland at Christmas for professional coaching.

Emil Zatopek’s world best performance of 44min 54.65ec for 15 kilometres was lowered by 2j2sec by the East German, Bans Grotoski, at Torgau last month, Zatopek’s time was set in Czechoslovakia in 1951, when he was putting up the greatest distance ever covered in one hour—l2 miles 811 yards.

Among those from Christchurch who will be attending the twenty-first anniversary of the Celtic-United athletic and harrier club in Dunedin this week-end will be W. A. (BUI) Kennedy, who is a foundation member of the club. Already a member of the Christchurch Harrier Club, Kennedy transferred to Otago for two years, becoming the deputy-captain of the hew Celtic-United club when it was formed in 1938, and holding this position until his return to Christchurch about 1940. He had the distinction of winning the dub’s harrier championship for the first two years Women’s hurdling fields in Canterbury should benefit greatly from the transfer to C h r i stchurch of Miss A. Coleman from Taranaki, where she won the West Coast, North Island, championship for two years in succession. Now competing for the Technical :-■ •••• club, Miss Coleman was third in the national 80 metres hurdle titles in 1957 and 1958. A book-keeping machinist, Miss Coleman began her athletic career at the Hawera Technical and successively took the championships in each of the grades. Before coming to Christchurch, Miss Coleman trained herself but now her coaching is supervised by Mr V. Briedis. Miss Coleman has a best time of 11.9 sec for the 80-metre hurdles.