Noted Sportsmen All Claim Rickshaw Wins

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30214, 20 August 1963, Page 12

Noted Sportsmen All Claim Rickshaw Wins

/New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL. Aug. 19. An estimated 10,000 people crammed two city blocks in Invercargill today to see some of New Zealand's most noted sportsmen take part in perhaps the strangest contest of their lives. In little more than half an hour, 120 Lions Club members with buckets collected more than £4OO from the crowd which saw the event —a rickshaw race, organised by the club as a climax to the Southland branch of the Intellectually Handicapped

Children’s Parents’ Association's penny pile appeal. Six rickshaws—highlydecorated trotting sulkies—lined up for the start at the corner of Yarrow and Dee streets. They all finished but an inquiry into the result is proceeding and is likely to proceed for some years. The district president of the Lions, Mr. W Thomson and the athletics coach, Mr A. Lydiard, maintain they beat the world miler. P. G. Snell and "Miss Southland" 1963, Miss Ngawara Bradshaw. The New Zealand full-back. D. B. Clarke, the Southland half-back. A. Tait, the champion diver, L. Hodge, and the I.H.C. president, Mr S King, maintain they should be considered on the grounds of interference early in the race The former wrestler and Whangarei publican. Lofty Blomfleld, and the Foveaux Strait conqueror. J. van Leeuwen, with Messrs M. Forgie and J. Healey, maintain that everyone else should be disqualified and the race re-run. However, Messrs Thompson and Lydiard were first past the post, with Snell and Miss Bradshaw half a length away. Clark and Tait ware next Hodge and Mr King fin shed strongly It was impossible to put the rest in order. Before they reached the post they were surrounded by a seething mass of children. The half-dozen or so policemen. including a superintendent, senior-sergeant and two sergeants, were powerless to stop the enthusiastic youngsters from stripping the sulkies of decorations and harassing the drivers for autographs.