Gold medal to an American

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33448, 1 February 1974, Page 8

Gold medal to an American

An American wearing final at Queen Elizabeth the colours of England, II Park yesterday. Judy Vernon, narrowly Both Mrs Vernon and the won the Commonwealth runner -up. Gaye Dell, of AusGames 100 m hurdles tralia. were credited with the same time of 13.5 sec in the official results. However, the electronic timing equipment showed that Mrs Vernon was nine-hundredths of a second faster. Compared with the Commonwealth record of I2.ssec and even the New Zealand

record of 13.3 sec—both held by the Australian, Pam Kil-born-Ryan—the race was run in slow time. Mrs Vernon was two-tenths of a second slower than the time she ran last year, which placed her at the top of the Commonwealth rankings. :

Mrs Vernon had been living in Britain for about three years. She is married to an English triple jumper, John Vernon, who missed selection for the Games blit who was in the stand yesterday to watch his wife win the gold medal. Third place went to Modupe Oshikoya, of Nigeria, who improved on her previous best time of 13.8 sec by a tenth of a second.

The New Zealand representatives. 28-year-old Brenda Matthews and the talented schoolgirl, Michelle Miles, who is 10 years her junior, were well up but both finished out of a place. Miss Miles surprised by beating Miss Matthews, the national champion, and taking fifth place with a time of 13.9 sec,