AMERICAN OFFER Sprint star may quit Australia

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33454, 8 February 1974, Page 18

AMERICAN OFFER Sprint star may quit Australia

C’.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SYDNEY. The champion Australian sprinter, Raelene Boyle, announced yesterday that she would not compete in the Australian athletics titles in Adelaide next month, and said she may take up an American athletics scholarship.

Miss Boyle was speaking at Sydney Airport before leaving to take part in the Maple Leaf Games in Toronto, Canada.

She had been invited to attend by the Canadian Athletics Union, but the invitation was withdrawn after an insistence that Miss Boyle take a manageress with her.

The Canadian union was not prepared to pay the air fares for a manageress as well as for Miss Boyle. A private sport promotion company stepped in and has paid the fares for Miss Boyle.

Miss Boyle said yesterday that she might not run for Australia again. She said she had been offered an athletics scholarship to attend Berkeley College in California later this year.

‘Raw deal’ “Athletes in Australia have been getting a raw deal. I am not competing in Adelaide because the track is terrible,” said Miss Boyle, who won three gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch.

I “I’m fed up with the association. Last night I was willing to change my citizenship. Because of all the fuss, I am going to get away. “Here I’ve got nothing. Kids in other countries are taking up athletics scholarships and learning something while they are training. “P have a full-time job now. and it’s just too much to try to do the two. I would like to have the chance of a good education. “When I come back from Canada, it won’t be long before I go overseas again, to have a look around and decide what I want to do,” she said. A despondent Raelene appeared on national television and said that she was fed up with authorities who were “crushing” her. A former Olympic hurdler, R. Weinberg, now <an official, came to her aid and convinced the Amateur Athletics Union officials that because the trip was financed by Raelene herself she should be allowed to travel without the otherwise mandatory chaperone. The 22-year-old Commonwealth Games triple gold medallist will now get her chance to compete against her arch-rival, Renate Stetcher, of East Germany, in Canada, and later in the United States. In Christchurch The secretary of the Australian Women’s Athletics Association (Mrs Doris Magee) who is in Christchurch, said that Miss Boyle

had not received permission from her organisation to travel.

She said that an approach had been made for Miss Boyle to compete in Europe later this year. “She was told to apply to the union for permission and it would be granted,” Mrs Magee said. “Our body is the only one that can grant her permission, and I am very surprised to hear that she has already left for Canada,” Mrs Magee said.