SIMPSON ALREADY HAS A N.Z. TITLE BUT..... Canterbury captain still has finest hour to come

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

SIMPSON ALREADY HAS A N.Z. TITLE BUT..... Canterbury captain still has finest hour to come

(By

R. O. DEW)

To any athlete aiming for the highest levels of competition, consistency of performance is a far more valuable quality than isolated brilliance. For this reason, the talented Toe H athlete, Ken Simpson, was well pleased with his effort in the Canterbury long jump championship at Rugby Park last Saturday. His winning of the Canterbury title with a recordbreaking leap of 23ft 11 jin was quite outstanding, but it was of secondary importance to his consistency. Not one of his six championship jumps was less than 23ft 7in and that is a feat which few athletes in New Zealand could claim to have achieved. Until Saturday, Simpson felt that his best chance of doing well at the New Zealand championships in Hamilton next month lay in the triple jump. But now

he is not quite so sure. D. S. Norris (Auckland) won the long jump with a best leap of 24ft sin at Inglewood last year and this is not a great deal further than Simpson achieved last Saturday. The red-haired Canterbury athlete has already recorded one jump exceeding 24ft —when he was in Australia a few years ago —but his progress has been halted since then by a series of ankle injuries and a successful period of concentrating on the 220yds hurdles. Oddly enough, it was in the 220 hurdles that Simpson won his only national title. This was at Hamilton in 1969 when he edged out R. Pownall (Auckland) in a photo finish. After this great run, Simpson was tipped as a prospect for the 1970 Commonwealth Games as a 440yds hurdler. The 220yds was being discarded as an international distance and he had no alternative but to step up to the longer

distance. He did this with some small success at the start of |he next season before deciding that it was not for him. He elected to concentrate on the events he enjoyed most, long and triple jumps. There were a few surprised looks at Rugby Park on the first day of the pro-

vincial championships when he turned out in the 400 metres hurdles final and ran second to the outstanding Old Boys hurdler, R. 'Mclntosh, in 54.95ec, But Simpson has no intention of returning to this form of competition on a serious note.

“A few of us entered just to> make up the field,” he explained. Last year he was unable to spare the time to contest the New Zealand long and triple jumps, although he won both at Canterbury championship level. However, this season he is keen to test his skills against the best in the country.

In the back of his mind he has as his long term target the gaining of a place in the New Zealand team to compete at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in his home city. “With the Games being held here I would be silly if I didn’t try to get in the team.”

His best chance — he still considers — is in the triple jump. Behind him he has a best performance of

50ft 7£in as tangible tes" mony to his considerab talent in this event although his greatest distance this year is slightly less—47ft lOin. “If I can reach 50ft early next season I will have a seriou? attempt at getting in the team,” he said. Now 27, Simpson appears to have recovered from the ankle injuries which retarded his progress in previous years. He had a groin muscle injury this season and competed in the Canterbury championships with an elastic thigh bandage. But it proved no handicap to him. He has now Jost count of the number of Canterterbury long and triple jump titles he has won over the years. In years gone by he was also prominent in sprinting and high jumping. When A. G. Steel and D. W. Mackenzie were New Zealand’s two leading sprinters, Simpson’s presence in the field always ensured that they could consider nothing less than maximum effort if they wanted to win. Over the years, Simpson has served Canterbury athletics well and this has been recognised by the Canterbury selectors (Messrs D. W. Mackenzie, V. Briedis and W. Jowett), who have asked him to captain the Canterbury team to contest the New Zealand championships in Hamilton. This added responsibility is unlikely to adversely affect his form, for the popular Toe H all-rounder is not exactly inexperienced. He has already made a name for himself at national level, but if things work out as hoped his finest hour is still to come.