Quality, quantity in cycling team

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 14

Quality, quantity in cycling team

(By

R. M. CAIRNS)

Canterbury cycling teams have already won their two major interprovincial meetings this season, and there is no reason why the side chosen after the provincial championships last weekend should not be successful also.

Last year’s national championship team broke new ground when, for the first time, it tied for the points shield, with Auckland. There is justifiable confidence that this year’s squad could' better that performance and win the shield outright. Canterbury has an unusually large team of 22 three more than last year. That so many could be picked reflects on the great depth that is developing in the sport in Canterbury. There must be very few centres with seven men in the kilometre time trial, but Canterbury is in this dominating position through P. D. Brydon, D. A. Swanston, B. G. Stockwell and J. P. S. Mullan having qualified with times better than Imin 16sec.

Similarly, three automatic qualifiers—Stockwell, R. M. G. A. Heyde and Swanston

— means Canterbury has five representatives in the 4000 metres individual pursuit. Yet juniors, such as G. W. Howes (not available for the championships), and J. Schriek and J. Sullivan have also shown themselves capable of riding well in this event.

The plentiful supply does not stop at these basically strength events, however. In days of less quality, the selectors would undoubtedly have delayed the choice of their sprinters and 15,000 metre riders to give M. W. Litolff a chance to recover, from injury and make the. team.

But when they had Brydon, Swanston, J, P. S. Mullan and R. E. Knight to choose from, there was no need to look any further, unfortunate though this is for Litolff.

Undoubtedly the greatest feature of the team, though, is the selection of Swanston for every event with the exception of the tandem.

With other riders this could be viewed as imposing too heavy a burden; this is unlikely to be the case with Swanston. He is a big man who thrives on a lot of racing, and performs the better for it. In his mood and form of the provincial championships, Swanston should be a sight worth watching at the national championships.