Young Athletes Offer Challenge To Senior Competitors

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30953, 8 January 1966, Page 11

Young Athletes Offer Challenge To Senior Competitors

TWO of the brightest young A prospects on the Canterbury athletics horizon are without doubt the Technical club competitors. Misses Sally Ann Flynn and Barbara Poulsen. At 15 and 16 respectively, they have many years of competition ahead of them and have obviously not reached their physical peak.

Yet they are already making their mark on Canter-

bury athletics. One of them, Miss Flynn, actually has a New Zealand senior title to her name. She is a strongly built girl but surprised even her most enthusiastic supporters by winning the womens’ javelin at Palmerston North last season with an excellent throw of 119 ft 7Jin. A few weeks earlier she had won the Canterbury title with an even greater throw of 134 ft lin. The other, Miss Poulsen, is the reigning Canterbury 80 metres hurdles champion in the open grade, a fine spriner and, like her fellow club member, a shot putter of rare potential. Both girls are exceptionally versatile, being able to more than hold their own with more experienced seniors in any event from long jumping to relay running, but it is perhaps in the shot that they have shown the most promise. Their friendly rivalry has provoked astonishing progress. This season they have both tossed the senior shot out to more than 40ft and, in spite of their relative youth, have only been consistently bettered by the Empire Games prospect, Miss D. M. Charteris. And at their present stage of de-

velopment they are considerably further advanced than Miss Charteris was when in their age group. The record in the under-17 shot has risen spectacularly in the last three seasons. Miss Charteris sent it soaring up to 37ft OJin at the end of the 1963-64 season but It only lasted until the beginning of the following season. Then, Miss Poulsen sent it out to 38ft 3in. In September this year she broke the 40ft barrier with a magnificent throw of 41ft 4|in only to see Miss Flynn better it less than a month later with 42ft 9Hn, a mark which still stands. Miss Flynn at present holds the under-17 javelin record with the fantastic distance of 134 ft 4|in and if her progress continues it must be only a matter of months before she breaks the 10-vear-old senior record of 142 ft 3in, held by M. W. Garrod. She has already added more than 15ft to her distance in two years. Neither Miss Poulsen or Miss Flynn hold the Canterbury under-17 discus record but only because most of their competition is in the senior ranks. Miss Flynn once held it at 110 ft 9in when only 13 and now it stands at 120 ft 6Jin. Recently Miss Flynn achieved 120 ft in senior competition while Miss Poulsen put the senior discus out to 123 ft lOJin. In jumping the sprinting Miss Poulsen has shown a slight edge on her rival. This season she recorded 18ft lin in the senior long jump at Rugbv Park behind Misses V. Gilmore and L. Curtis—only a few inches outside the Canterbury record. Miss Flynn has also recorded more than 16ft. So far this season. Miss Poulsen is the only athlete to

provide the New Zealand 220 yards champion, Miss L. Burrell (Technical), with any strong competition in the short sprints. Miss Burrell has never been in any real danger of being beaten but on one occasion in a 75yd dash there was only a tenth-of-a-second between the two. Miss Poulsen’s time was a creditable B.Bsec. In the weeks ahead this season, both Miss Poulsen and Miss Flynn have much to look forward to. They have the prospect of winning national titles on their home ground and have been chosen to compete against the Russians in the international meeting at Lancaster Park on January 15—a rare honour for junior athletes. Canterbury is indeed fortunate to have such fine young athletes coming up through the ranks to challenge those at the top. Thanks to the splendid allround progress of these two, and others like them, the safety of the province’s high national ranking in women’s competition is