A FINE ALL-ROUNDER RETIRES

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31633, 20 March 1968, Page 11

A FINE ALL-ROUNDER RETIRES

’A FTER 11 or 12 years in cycling R. D. Mann has decided to bring his career to a close. This is a sad blow to the sport for he was one of its most notable performers but he has now lost his enthusiasm for training and feels that this is the only sensible action to take. Mann was not one of those people who merely rode on the track to keep himself fit for his specialty, the road, or vice versa. He was a true all-rounder, in the very top class—in Canterbury at least—in both road and track racing. Other riders can usually be classified in one or the other but not Mann. He has an extremely impressive record which started with the Papanui novice dub, of which he was a foundation member in 1957. He had a bad start to track riding, for he fell off in his very first race, but in his first season, he won the Mairehau Novice Wheelmen’s points cup for the most wins. Although Maim was sec-

ond, first and first in threi junior club 50-mile championships, and picked up a track sprint championship in 1961, he did not become a dominant force in Canterbury until he was approaching 20. Then things came in a rush. From 1962 until this year, Mann won six out of seven Paponui club sprint championships for 10-mile titles, the kilometre time trial four times, and in 1963, he even won the 4000 metres individual pursuit. And in the other years, he was either second or third. In provincial championships, Mann was always a medal-winner from 1963. He won three successive sprint crowns, 1963-65, and in 1964-65-67 won the 10 miles to equal J. P. Wylie’s record. From 1962, he only once missed a placing in this event, which he considered his best Mann also won the

kilometre time trial with Imin 15sec in 1963, and the tandem in 1965 (with C. B. J. Fitzgerald), and 1967 (with D. A Swanston). For four years, 1964-65-67-68, he was a member of winning pursuit teams, and in the other three years, 1962-63-66, his team was runnerup. These impressive achievements, which, with others, brought him a total of 70 medals and numerous certificates, do not tell the full story of Mann, however. They do not tell, for example, how he beat an international field of 10-milers at Dunedin’s Caledonian Ground in 1963 with a devastating sprint. That win, probably the greatest of Mann’s career, was lost in the words printed of G. F. Wright’s attempt to win by a breakaway. Nor do they tell of the bad

luck he suffered in national championship 10-miles when he was one of the best in the country. At Auckland in 1963 Mann finished fifth with a buckled wheel, he fell at Kew Bowl the next year and he punctured at Wanganui’s Cook’s Gardens in 1965. Then, in 1966, the Canterbury selectors omitted him from the 10-mile because he missed a placing in the provincial championships, and no-one thought to tell Mann later in the season that he could compete at the Commonwealth Games trials. Auckland rain meant the 10-mile was not raced last year, so Kew Bowl last month was Mann’s last chance. He proved something to himself and others with a fourth placing which was only a tyre short of third.

Mann’s record on the road is one of remarkable consistency. A frequent winner of fastest time, he was Canterbury champion twice, and third and fourth on other occasions as well as picking up the junior silver medal in 1961. Five times he won club 50-mile titles, junior and senior, and in one particular road classic, the Harry Saundercock Memorial 100 kilometers, was never worse than second fastest.

Often anonymous during a scratch race, usually prominent at the end, Mann was one of those riders who excelled in teams’ races. Although he might have been dropped from the bunch in a handicap road race, Mann would be one of the strongest members in a 100 kilometres teams' time trial. And while his form on the track may have been patchy, he could always be relied on in a teams’ pursuit.

Mann made himself as good as he was by, hard work. He was a craftsman on the track, a brilliant positional rider who overcame his lack of blinding speed with the ability to be in the right place at the right time.