Sportsman’s Notebook Amateur Cycling Titles Start This Evening

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29760, 1 March 1962, Page 18

Sportsman’s Notebook Amateur Cycling Titles Start This Evening

After a lapse of five years, the New Zealand amateur cycling championships will be held at English Park tonight, Friday and Saturday. There will be four sessions, one each evening and one on Saturday afternoon. AU sessions wiU be fuU of interest with a variety of events. Saturday night will, of course, be the highlight of the championships when all finals except the 1000 metres time trial will be decided. These championships have drawn a record entry of 55, with 42 coming from other centres, and there are capacity fields for all the senior events. Apart from being national championships, they will also serve as trials for the Empire Games at Perth. Riders from the championships will be selected to go on to further trials at Wanganui. . There are some outstanding riders from the North Island. G. Hill, who last year won the 1000 metre time trial for Canterbury at Wanganui, is now a resident of Wellington. If T. Cameron (Canterbury), can produce the form that gave him the Canterbury title, he could have a chance of winning this event.

The junior 500 metre sprints will be full of interest. D. Huria, who started riding only last year and appeared only five times on the track, took the junior provincial title this year. Until he competed in his club championships, Huria had not ridden in a sprint, but he soon became a good tactician. Huria’s strongest opposition in this event appears to come from D. Nigh (Auckland) and M. McLeay (OtagoSouthland). In aU the other events the riders appear to be fairly evenly matched and some very close finishes should be seen. Photo-finish apparatus will be used for the first time in Christchurch on Saturday night for aU finals. ¥ ¥ ¥ Busy Month As usual, March will be an especially busy month for lawn tennis in Christchurch as the season’s remaining fixtures are played off. Both grass and hard courts at Wilding Park will have plenty of use each week-end of the month. Both the senior men's and senior women's interclub competitions have been completed but the senior mixed is only at the third round, which will be played this Saturday. Another round of senior reserve will be played and the first grade draw should be completed and also that for section 111 of the second grade. This will leave the first grade at the play-off stage and the second

grade awaiting the completion of section I on March 10 before a play-off can be held.

This Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon, J. Kramer’s professionals will play at the park-. The next Saturday, March 10, is the day for the annual Canterbury-Wellington fixture, which, if the teams are at full strength in the men's section, will be a test for the three Wellington members of the New Zealand Davis Cup team in a match of Wilding Shield standard. That day should also complete the senior reserve draw to the play-off and the second grade to the same position. Also scheduled to be played that week-end on the hard courts on Saturday and Sunday are the annual Canterbury subassociations’ championships. Saturday, March 17, will have another round of senior mixed and any finals in lower grades that are ■ set down: and the Sunday is the date for the annual representative match with South Canterbury. If the country championships have not been completed the previous weekend they would probably be finished then. The last round of the senior mixed is scheduled for Saturday, March 24.

Another fixture for which a date will have to be found is the annual representative match between Town and Country senior and junior teams, the country teams being selected after the subassociations’ championships. The season will end with the annual Easter tournament, beginning on Saturday, April 21, on the hard courts. ¥ ¥ ¥ Snell’s Fame Tremendous newspaper, radio, and television publicity in recent weeks has made P. G. Snell a household word in Britain, and his recent 3min 56.8 sec mile in Auckland, 2.4 sec outside his own world record, prompted the following newspaper headings in London: — “You Can Be Sure of Snell” —“Daily Herald; “That’s Snell That Was”— “Daily Sketch:” “Snell’s Scorching Mile Completes 29-day Wonder"— "Daily Mail;" “Snell Cracks Four Minutes"—“Evening News;" and “Another Fast Mile by Snell”—“The Times”—London Correspondent ¥ ¥ ¥ Softball Games Several Canterbury representative softball sides will take the field on Saturday in Christchurch and Invercargill. Tiie senior men's side will defend the Jefferies Cup. which it has held for four seasons, against Southland in Invercargill, this being the first time that Canterbury has taken the trophy on tour. The Canterbury senior B grade women’s team, national titleholder in its grade, will also travel to play Southland. The Canterbury under-16 schoolboys’ team will meet Wellington at English Park, as a curtain-raiser to a match between the colts teams of the two provinces for the Cowles Cup.