Top ski camp at Craigieburn

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32660, 16 July 1971, Page 22

Top ski camp at Craigieburn

(New Zealand Press Association!

HASTINGS.

Jacques Regard, a 24-year-old French ski-ing instructor, is to coach New Zealand’s prospective international racers at a ski camp at Craigieburn Valley, near Christchurch, next month.

Miss Carol Lowry, of Okawa, Hastings, who has recently returned home after attending an international ski federation camp in Jugoslavia, is organising the camp on a trial basis. She said she wants to see how worth while it is, but if it is a success she would like to see it become a per-

manent annual event and a national training centre. Regard, who is employed by the French Ski Federation as a national coach, is to come to New Zealand during his annual holidays. The cost of Regard’s journey has been largely met by the ski racers and officials federation with the help of private donations. AIM OF CAMP

Miss Lowry said the aim of the camp was to establish a larger and stronger number of top level racers in New Zealand. A month’s solid training would give the trainees more confidence and a chance to develop techniques necessary for international competition. She said ski racing was only for the fit and young and some of the 24 to attend the camp would be secondary school students. Miss Lowry said New Zealand has some of the finest ski slopes in the world, but in the past ski-ing has been an amateur sport with little emphasis on racing. As a result the slopes of Ruapehu were becoming a place for family outings and clubs would have to change their attitudes towards racing for New Zealanders to have any success at international level.