Brilliant Sprint By Mackenzie

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

Brilliant Sprint By Mackenzie

POR the first time in five 1 years the outstanding Christchurch sprinter, D. W. Mackenzie (University), does not have at least one national title to his credit. However, prepared to write him off for the future would be wise to think again for he is far from finished yet When the annual Blenheim meeting was cancelled he travelled up to Wellington last Saturday and his tremendous form on the Evans Bay all-weather track wiped out all the disappointments and frustrations he has had this season. He won the 100 yards event in 9.9 sec, beating L. D’Arcy, who was runner-up in the national championship, and then raced away with the 220 yards event in a brilliant 21.6 sec the fastest official time recorded in the Dominion for the distance this season.

The time was also a personal best for Mackenzie and was a tenth of a second

inside the Canterbury record which he set four years ago. His fastest unofficial time is 21.2 sec, achieved in winning the New Zealand championship in 1964, but in this he was assisted by a tail wind. These times reinforce the opinion that it was injury and illness -t an important stage of the season which brought about Mackenzie’s downfall, not any fading in his powers. The achilles tendon he injured while on a tramping expedition still aches when he gets up in the morning. Many felt that he would have been better to contest the 100 and 220 yards events at the national championships rather than put all his eggs in one basket for

the quarter-mile. Subse- < quent events have certainly < lent support to this theory. < If he can get through his ! training programme next ! season without any interrup- * tions he should stand an ex- i cellent chance of winning a ! place in the team to take ! part in the first Pacific Con- { ference meeting in Tokyo. j Another Canterbury athlete to shine at the Wellington meeting was Miss V. Gilmour (Technical). She won the long jump with a best leap just a quarter of an inch less than 20ft. With a little more run-up speed she could regularly pass this barrier. She won the national long jump championship a few weeks ago with a wind assisted leap greater than 20ft Miss P. Haworth (Wellington) increased her chances of a trip to Mexico when she ran 23.8 sec for 220 yards on Saturday. This clipped a fifth of a second off Miss D. H. Porter’s national record.