China invites N.Z. team to tour

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33493, 26 March 1974, Page 12

China invites N.Z. team to tour

IN Z P A. Stall Correspondent) SHANGHAI. China has invited New Zealand to send either an athletics .in or a swimming team to tour this year.

However, the tour will take place only if the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association or the New Zealand Swimming Association will allow their members to compete against the Chinese, who do not belong to the world bodies controlling these sports.

The Chinese invitations | have gone to New Zealand I through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Wellington, and it is expected they will be discussed with the sports associations by the Department of Internal Affairs. Visiting teams are normally expected to pay their own fares to Hong Kong, and the Chinese pay from there on. A 32-member Chinese basketball team, both men and women, will come to New Zealand in late June or early

.July, and the New Zealand (Badminton Federation has invited China to send a team as soon as possible. The New Zealand Table Tennis Association has also' asked the Chinese to make another tour of New Zealand Jin 1976. Hard line A problem arises with isports, such' as swimming and athletics, which are controlled by international bodies of which China is not a member, and which have taken a hard line against

competition with the Chin ese.

In Christchurch, the chairman of the council of the New Zealand Swimming Association (Mr M. R. Duckmanton) said that the council had not received or heard about the invitation. He said that if an invitation was received, the council would not allow a team to go to China unless China was affiliated to the international body.

An invitation for New Zealand to tour China in 1972 Was declined because China was not a member of the world body.

The members of a United States swimming team which gave exhibitions in China were expelled after they returned home, and have brought a court action over their expulsion.

| The prospects of getting approval for competition against the Chinese in these (sports have probably improved with the decision oi the International Olympic •Committee to give its blessing to this year’s Asian Games in Teheran, where China will be competing for the first time. Council comment