Evergreens To Meet In Surf Contest

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30940, 22 December 1965, Page 11

Evergreens To Meet In Surf Contest

SPORTSMEN who consider themselves past their best at 25 would do well to visit Taylors Mistake on January 3 to watch the touring Queensland Surf LifeSaving team in action against Canterbury clubs. There they would see one of Australia’s most outstanding and durable surfers, M. W. Kropp, who, at 34 is Mill considered a major threat in championship surf and belt races. His meeting with his New Zealand counterpart, 35-year-old J. A. Lee (South Brighton), could prove one of the highlights of the carnival. Lee was a member of the South Brighton six-man team which won the New Zealand championship last season and is still an outstanding belt and surf swimmer. He was third in the New Zealand belt championship in 1961, was runner-up in the Canterbury surf race championship two years ago and has represented Canterbury on numerous occasions. Kropp, a member of the Currumbin Beach Vikings Club has had many notable victories in his 19 years of active competition; has also acquitted himself well in surf ski races. If reputation is anything to go by, R. G. Coleman, the 23-year-old North Queensland belt and surf race champion, should have matters much his own way. He

has held the belt' title for four yean in succession and the surf race title for the last two. In the surf nee the only local competitors likely to extend him are D. Staples (Waimairl), the present Canterbury champion, and L. Mclntosh (North Beach). However, neither la yet at the top of hia form. Another prominent surf swimmer with the Queensland team is N. Tyrell. He is another competitor almost in the veteran stage but at 29 and with 10 yean’ experience behind him he is still a respected opponent. He likes heavy seas and is equally at home in belt and surf races. The surf ski race will no doubt prove a great test for the reigning national champion, R. Dalton, and his younger brother, D. Dalton, who was the ski exponent with the New Zealand team which toured Australia last season. Their strongest opposition seems likely to come from 23-year-old J. Taylor, who has taken a number of major placings in Australian state carnivals so far this season. Of the three juniors tn the Queensland teem by far the most prominent is P. Lacey, a 16-year-dd from Surfers Paradise. He Is the holder of the Queensland junior surf race championship and was a member of the rescue and resuscitation team which won both the Queensland and Australian junior championships. The performances of the Canterbury junior surf race champion, A. Harrow (Taylor’s Mistake), and P. Cooper (New Brighton), another promising junior, will make an interesting comparison.