She Wants A Gold To Go With Her Silver And Bronze

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30940, 22 December 1965, Page 15

She Wants A Gold To Go With Her Silver And Bronze

New Zealand’s only world ranked woman middle distance runner, Mrs Marise Stephen, is very proud of the two handsome medals she has at her home in Christchurch.

They bear testimonial to her splendid performances in taking third place at the Tokyo Olympics in the 800 metres and finishing runner-up in the 880 yards at the last Empire Games in Perth.

But Mrs Stephen, who has gained enormous respect for the way she has won a permanent place in world athletic history with an almost complete lack of top-class opposition. is not satisfied that her collection is complete. Her great ambition before retiring is to win the gold medal in the 880 yards at next year’s Empire Games in Jamaica. And this will be her last chance to do so for it will be her final 1 major international meeting before retirement

CHANGED HER MIND When approached by “The Press'* this week Mrs Stephen said that she had originally intended to retire at the end of last season. However, her husband, the former Canterbury Rugby representative, D. R. Stephen, had persuaded her to continue for one more ceason and attempt to win selection for the Jamaican Ganwa

“This is positively my last season," she said. Training was tremendously hard work and took tip a lot of time,** she added. "Naturally, my main aim win be the gold medal at the games. I would like to win

this because I have been knocking at the door for so long,** she said, when referring to her silver medal at Perth and bronze at Tokyo. “This will be my last major race and I would like to make it a good one.’* ENGLISH OPPONENT

She considers that her main opposition in the 880 yards will come from thje English girl. Miss Anne Smith, who finished last out of the eight finalists in the Tokyo 800 metres. But in the last northern hemisphere season Miss Smith recorded 2min ssec for the 880 yards—the fastest in the Commonwealth for the season.

Mrs Stephen has already equalled the Olympic standard for her distance of 2min 9sec and on another occasion was just outside with 2min 9.4 sec. Nevertheless, she is not taking her selection for granted and is training under her coach. Mr V. Breidis, to reach a peak for the New Zealand championships in March. She is extremely satisfied with the way her preparation la progressing because she has only been in training since July. An ankle operation prevented her starting any earlier and then it was a matter of building up from scratch. NO COMPETITION Not quite so satisfying are her track performances. Her times have been reasonably good but Mrs Stephen feels they should have been better. Her greatest problem is lack of competition. This prompted her to seek ss. snss

men in the half-miles at Rugby Park. But this has not been entirely successful either.

‘They don’t help me at all. I am sure it is not good for my mental outlook,” she said. She could not run her best at the inter-dub meetings because she was not tensed up. There was no atmosphere and she found it hard to work up any enthusiasm. "There has to be a build-up for an event but here there is nothing to build up for.” When there is the need for it, Mrs Stephen feels that she will rise to the occasion. As long as she is beating the qualifying time she is quite happy. She is quite confident of at least repeating her 2min 2.Bsec time at Tokyo. At the New Zealand championships, Mrs Stephen will contest both the quarter-mile and 880 yards, events for which she currently holds both the national titles and records. At Jamaica her main event will be the. 880 yards and there is a possibility that she might enter the 440 yards and go for the double.