FACILITIES INSPECTED AND PRAISED Timaru seen as centre for pre-Games meetings

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32568, 30 March 1971, Page 28

FACILITIES INSPECTED AND PRAISED Timaru seen as centre for pre-Games meetings

Timaru could wonderfully com plement Christchurch by providing pre-Games competition for visiting teams to the 1974 Commonwealth Games, said the chairman of the Games sports committee (Mr H. C. Blazey) yesterday.

Last Saturday Mr Blazey and Mr J. H. Johnson, the chairman of the sports technical committee, visited Timaru and inspected the sporting facilities already there and heard of new ones planned.

The Timaru authorities—both local body and sports—were very keen to provide preGames competitions, and it appeared that the city’s sporting facilities by 1974 would be well up to the required standard, Mr Blazey said.

The possibility of postGames events had also been raised, he said, but this was unlikely because most visiting teams would leave for home as soon as the Games were over. The new 50-metre heated pool above Caroline Bay would be perfect for swimming events, and a diving well was planned alongside it. Mr Blazey said. It was likely that a three-metre and a five-metre board would be installed. The spectator accommodation at the pool would be adequate, as it should also be at the Caledonian Ground, where track and field and track cycling meetings might be held. Improvements were planned to the present cycling track, and inside it a new athletics circuit was inten-

. ded by 1974. The Games’s . indoor sports could be catered for in a proposed new sports complex on the west side of the city, said Mr Blazey. However, the possibility of injury might preclude boxers, wrestlers and weight-lifters from any serious competition so close to the Games. The teams could take up residence in the Games village a fortnight before the official opening on January 24, and athletes wishing to compete in pre-Games events at Timaru would go down and back on the same day, Mr Blazey said. Newsletters It would be up to the Games organising committee to ensure that all visiting nations were made aware well in advance of what Timaru

might have to offer, and this could be done in the committee’s newsletters, he said. The possibility of Ashburton providing some form of pre-Games competition had also been raised, said Mr Blazey. Its indoor sports stadium would be most suitable for a sport such as badminton, and this possibility will be examined at a later date, he said. Stall proceeds • While in Timaru Mr Blazey and Mr Johnson had the pleasant task of accepting a gift of $24 from two 11-year-old girls and a nine-year-old boy who ran a stall especially to raise money for the Games.

The donors were Sally Piddington, Jullian Harrison and Stewart Piddington, all of the Waimataitai School.