JOHNSTONE RETIRES Fine Record In Cycling

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31211, 8 November 1966, Page 19

JOHNSTONE RETIRES Fine Record In Cycling

(By Our Cycling Reporter!

R. D. Johnstone, who has been at or near the top of New Zealand cycling longer than anyone at present riding, has announced his retirement.

He made this decision after the Dulux six-day tour from Auckland to Wellington. Johnstone, the only competitor to have ridden in all the tours, made a disappointing showing.

Age caught up with Johnstone this year when he failed in a bid for selection for the Commonwealth Games but rode in the world championships; he had earlier ridden in the 1958 and 1962 Empire Games and the 1964

Olympics, no road team being sent to the 1960 Olympics. Johnstone was captain of the two latter teams. Johnstone has been a model of consistency since he won the 1957 New Zealand road championship, to which he later added two second placings and a third. He also won the New Zealand threemile grass track titles in 1958 and 1962 but his most consistent efforts were reserved for team races.

Three times (1958-59-61), he captained winning Auckland teams in the national 4000 metres pursuit track championship, and in 1961, and from 1964 to 1966, led the mighty Point Chevalier team to victories in the Hope Gibbons 25-mile teams’ time trial championship.

Tours he has won include the 1960 Dulux, and the Southland three-day tour in 1963.

Crashing at Cardiff, in the 1958 Empire Games road race, Johnstone was the self-sacri-ficer, a “donkey”, in his other two Games appearances. His pacing at Perth in 1962

helped New Zealand to second and third. Johnstone featured in the most hair-raising of finishes at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and for seventeenth, was credited with the same time as the third place-getter. The retirement of Johnstone, following close on that of L. J. Byers, robs New Zealand of her two most experienced cyclists. Happily, both are to maintain their association with the sport through coaching.