Miss Poulsen retires from competition

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33047, 14 October 1972, Page 48

Miss Poulsen retires from competition

The outstanding Canterbury woman athlete in recent years, Miss B. Poulsen, has announced her retirement. She said yesterday that although she had carried out a winter preparation for this season—and had harboured hopes of competing in the 1974 Commonwealth Games —she had decided over the last few weeks to retire. There was a possibility, Miss Poulsen said, that she may at a future date decide to return to competition, but this was fairly remote. In the meantime, she intends to continue her association with the sport as a coach. This season, Miss Poulsen won the New Zealand pentathlon championships in Dunedin for a fifth time and

she was unlucky not to gain Olympic selection. Her specialist event has been the shot put—she was Canterbury champion several times and the national titleholder on five occasions—and she took the silver medal in this event at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Another high point in her career was when she won the shot put at the 1969 PanPacific Games in Tokyo. Miss Poulsen’s versatility is shown by the fact that she has also held Canterbury senior sprint, long jump and hurdles titles. As a member of the Technical club, Miss Poulsen has throughout her career been under the guidance of the highly-successful coach, Mr V. Briedis.