Games Team Still £10,000 Short

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31061, 17 May 1966, Page 18

Games Team Still £10,000 Short

“The Press’* Special Service WELLINGTON. New Zealanders will have to find about £lO,OOO to send the team to the Jamaica Empire Games.

The total cost of sending the team will be about £32,625, of which £17,500 is already available. The £17,500 is made up of a £12,000 grant from the Golden Kiwi lottery funds and £5500 from the New Zealand Olympic and British Empire Games Association. Athletics, with a possible 18 competitors, has to find the biggest sum. Its total of £2725 is £725 larger than swimming’s target, that sport having four in B category. The New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association has £2500 available to send the team but it has indicated that all B category athletes would be the responsibility of their centres. However, there are only five in this group. Sums to be found by individual sports are:— Athletics, £2725; badminton, £575; boxing, £1000; cycling, £1150; fencing, £1525;

shooting, £575: swimming and diving, £2000: weight-lifting. £525; wrestling, £lOO. However, in addition to these sums, each of the nine calendar sports will have to And £425 if they wish to send sectional managers. In the case of cycling, and possibly of athletics and swimming, this could be £B5O if these sports send a coach.

The New Zealand Games Association has stipulated that each athlete will have to undergo stringent medical and physical tests before the departure of the team on July 27. The medical determinations will be done as far as possible by the athletes’ family doctors and the physical fitness test will be set by the individual national associations.

This was to stamp out repetitions of what had happened with past teams, said the chairman (Mr C. L. S. Cross).