Titles Without Top Runners

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31196, 21 October 1966, Page 13

Titles Without Top Runners

(New Zealand Press Association! WELLINGTON. Fields for distance events at the New Zealand track and field championships at Lower Hutt next year are going to be greatly depleted.

The absence of the top track runners could become a regular thing while New Zealand continues to send teams to the international cross-country championships in Europe. Next March, at least six,| and possibly eight, of the I country's top distance runners! will not compete in the national championships. The losses in March are almost certain to include the; Commonwealth Games 3000 metres steeplechase gold | medallist, R. P. Welsh! (Otago), and the games! bronze medallists in the mile! and marathon, I. S. Studd (Auckland) and M. Ryan (Waikato), respectively. Others Missing All three were likely to be crowd drawcards, but these are by no means the only losses. Out of the fields must also come B. J. Everitt (Wellington), J. F. Julian, R. Maddaford and perhaps W. D.

Raillie (Auckland), and J. L. Davies (Waikato). Welsh, who won the national steeplechase title in 1964 and again this year, is considered a certain member of the team for the international cross-country championships at Barry (Wales) in early March. Julian, a Jamaica games marathon representative, and Ryan are also strong prospects. Ryan would have been a starter in the national three or six mile track championship and the marathon. The .absence of both will rob the ! marathon of much of its i glamour. Snell's Replacement ! Studd has become New Zealand’s brightest miler since !p. G. Snell, but he is also a useful three miler. | Maddaford, the youthful national cross-country champion, normally would be considered a possible starter in the one and three mile events. Davies and Baillie, should they decide to compete in the national cross-country trial at Cannon’s Creek on December 3, could also force their way into the international team, and this would also have an adverse effect on the national championship fields. | With the name runners absent in the middle distance ! and distance track events, i much of the appeal of the ! championships will be lost.