Ski Champion Keen To Try N.Z. Snow

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32053, 30 July 1969, Page 2

Ski Champion Keen To Try N.Z. Snow

An American champion skier, Miss Jean Saubert, who won a silver and. a bronze medal in the 1964 Winter Olympics in Austria, is leading the first ski tour from the United States to New Zealand. The party of four, two men and two women, arrived in

Christchurch last evening from Australia. They will visit Queenstown and Mount Cook.

The tourist company which arranged the tour also promoted ski tours to South America, and planned another tour of Australia and New Zealand next month, said Miss Saubert, Designed to give members of the party a chance to ski with Miss Saubert, the present “recreational” tour is for 17 days. Ski-ing was growing in popularity all the time in the

United States, and ski fields were being established “wherever it snowed,” said Miss Saubert, who represented

the United States at the world ski-ing championships in France in 1962 and in Chile in 1964. For most people, especially in the west of the United States, a skifield was a matter of only three hours drive, she said. Where Miss Saubert lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, five ski-ing areas are within 20 minutes travelling time, and three of them are large ones.

She said the sport was popular in universities and in some high schools in ski area*. “I think it will come to the

elementary schools soon, too. They are tending now to try sports the children can keep up when they are older. Skiing and tennis, for instance, are naturals—things families can do together. Team sports such as basketball and baseball are more difficult when you are older.” Miss Saubert teaches at an elementary school and is a graduate of Oregon State University. She was nine when she started to ski. Her father worked for the forestry service which was in charge of the ski area where they lived, and it was natural that she

should take up the sport with her parents. When she was 10, Miss Saubert started to compete In local races. She won the United States junior national championships when she was 14 and again two years later. In 1961, when she finished high school, she was selected to train for the 1962 world championships. In 1963, she trained for the 1964 Winter Olympics. “I spent the winters ski-ing and went to college in the fall, the spring and the summer. It took me five years to get through instead of four, because I missed some classes altogether, but it was worth it” Miss Saubert gave up racing after the 1966 world championships, but at the Winter Olympics in France in 1968 she was the commentator for an American broadcasting company. This is her first visit to New Zealand, and she is looking forward to trying the snow. “I have heard the skiing is very good here. I only wish the tour allowed more time for sight-seeing as well,” she said.

Blow Up^—Girls who wear glasses will find eye make-up is more easily applied with the aid of the magnifying side of a man’s shaving mirror.