Another Retiring After Tokyo

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30531, 28 August 1964, Page 13

Another Retiring After Tokyo

New Zealand’s most accomplished woman athlete in field events, Mrs V. I. Young, has decided to “pull out entirely” from competition after the Tokyo Olympic Games in October. She said yesterday that she might continue until the end of the 1964-65 season, depending on her frame of mind after returning from the games, but no Inoger. Mrs Young, now 27, is the second of Canterbury’s Olympic representatives to announce her forthcoming retirement in as many days. The 800 metres prospect, Miss M. A. M. Chamberlain, is also retiring at the end of the season. “You have got to settle down sometime,” she said. Whether or not she would get

“itchy feet” after a lay-off she did not know. If she did decide to make a comeback it wouid not be difficult. Age did not matter a great deal in field events; they, were a matter of technique and it would only take a relatively short time to get fit again. Whatever happened, she would certainly retain her interest in athletics, she said. Mrs Young will be representing New Zealand at the Tokyo Olympic Games in the shot put and the discus. Her best performances to date are 54ft s|in in the shot and 176 ft lin. in the discus. These compare favourably with the Olympic records, 56ft 9in and 180 ft 9in, respectively, .both held by the Russian, Tamara Press. Since she began concentrating on field events at the age of 16, Mrs Young has won

the New Zealand shot put title nine times, the discus title continuously since 1958 and the pentathlon twice. She is undecided whether she will defend her shot and discus titles in the coming season. After an early interest in sprinting and hurdling, Mrs Young, in 1954, began training with the shot under Mr Valdermars Briedis, a Latvian, who was one of the coaches of the Dutch Olympic team in 1948. After one winter of coaching with Mr Briedis, she improved her distance from 26ft to 38ft OJin. Since then she has had a remarkable run of recordbreaking performances. The Tokyo Olympics will be her third Olympic games. She was fifth in the shot put in 1956, fourth in the shot and tenth in the discus at Rome.