Versatility The Keynote Of Leading Speed Skater

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31152, 31 August 1966, Page 11

Versatility The Keynote Of Leading Speed Skater

TT is not often that a speed skater can claim equal success in both long and short track racing, for they are as different as sprinting and distance running in athletics. Long track racing is virtually a time trial on a 400-metre track. In comparison, short track racing is an exciting, bustling affair on a track 220 yards in circumference or less. No quarter is given or asked by any competitors and spectacular spills are frequent. Both forms of racing require different, specialist training. Therefore, it was something of a shock this season when R. J. Montgomery, essentially a long track skater, beat the New Zealand short track aggregate champion, D. GreiVe, by inches for the mile title on the tight Centaurus road rink.

This fine win obviously prompted Montgomery to take a look at the present short track records. They seemed to be within his reach and so a week after his mile win he travelled to Lake Ida with his coach, J. H. Havenaar, and his perennial rival, R. Falkingham, for a special attempt on the mile record, then held by another Christchurch skater, G. E. Glover, at 3min 39.1 sec. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. His time for the eight and a half laps was a sensational 3min 13.7sec—25.4sec inside the old record. Falkingham, a lap behind, was also inside the old record. And conditions were by no means ideal—there was a light powdering of snow on the ice.

A few weeks later two more short track record bids

were planned at Lake Ida. The first, over 440 yards, failed by half a second and Glover retained his record. However, in the second attempt, over half a mile. Montgomery clipped I.ssec off Glover's national time of Imin 34.95ec. On the long track front Montgomery’ did not have such record breaking success. But he won the New Zealand aggregate title for the second season in succession and made a clean sweep of the Canterbury championships. Unfavourable weather and ice conditions prevented him breaking the records. Now only 19, Montgomery has a wonderful future ahead of him on the ice. He has the basic speed for short track events and the stamina for the long track. If he can continue to improve at the rate he has in the last two seasons he should he considered for selection to the 1972 Winter Olympics at Sappore in Japan.