Australian Swimmers At A Disadvantage

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32072, 21 August 1969, Page 13

Australian Swimmers At A Disadvantage

Travel weariness among the New South Wales team may give the New Zealand swimmers a slight advantage in the carnival at the Wharenui pool this evening.

The 18 New South Wales swimmers will have to compete less than three hours after their arrival in Christchurch from Sydney. Although many of them have produced excellent times in winter competition they may not be able to emulate them this evening. However, any weariness among the Australians will be countered by the fact that the New Zealand swimmers most of whom come from Canterbury, have had no firstclass competition during the winter.

The most exciting racing should be in the men’s freestyle events, in which G. Walker (Canterbury) and M. Borrie and P. Laing (Otago) will compete against the Australians, R. Wilkinson and G. Windeatt, in the 100 metres and A. B. Kindred (Canterbury) will meet Windeatt and Wilkinson in the 400 metres. Walker, Windeatt and Wil-

kinson have similar times for the shorter race, and although Kindred has the fastest performance for the 400 metres, he has had no competition since he set this time in Canada at the end of the summer season.

Also Kindred has had influenza this week but he expects to be sufficiently recovered to test both Australians. In the women’s events, the addition of the Auckland swimmer, Miss B. N. Williams, will provide more interest in the medley and breaststroke events. Miss Williams is second to Miss T. K. Shipston in medley events in national rankings and also holds the national title in 220 yards breaststroke. She will compete against the Australian Olympic representative, Miss D. Rickard. Miss A. Bunt will have an opportunity to break three minutes for the 200 metres breaststroke when she meets Miss G. Toovey (Australia) who has already recorded 2min 58sec. Miss Bunt’s best time for the distance is 3min o.6sec.

Track Record.—The Ru.sl.n athlete. Vladimir Dudin, set a new world record for the 3000 metres steeplechase during the national championships at Kiev He won in Smin ZZ.Zsec. breaking the old record held by J. Kuha (Finland), by 2sec. Change Of Sport.—The former Wimbledon champion, F. Sedgman. will make a return to bigtime tournaments next week—ln the Australian .quash rackets championships.