Angry American asks, 'Why?’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33750, 24 January 1975, Page 4

Angry American asks, 'Why?’

“Lame-brain excuses” were offered for the late arrival of the American track and field team at ithe New Zealand Games, the hurdler, Patty Van Wblvelaere, said yesterday. The team arrived at Christchurch airport at about 9.40 a.m., only five hours before Miss van Wolvelaere and several other Americans were, due to compete. "We should have left the States two days earlier.’’ she said. "If all the other teams

' were here earlier, why > couldn’t we be?” She said that an aircraft fault in Los Angeles was an) unavoidable delay, but if ’ they had left two days earlier ' that problem would not have arisen. “I was mad,” Miss van Wolvelaere said, “I was ■ upset. At first I thought I; forget it, I wouldn’t run, but .(then I decided I had better. I "I heard the Russians were , coming and that is a pretty ’[good incentive. ”1 don’t know why we) ■ could not have left earlier. 1 There were some pretty lame-) i brain excuses around. Some-i

I one said the organisers could ‘not afford to have us here too long before the games, but that must be wrong. “Some of us have had two or three days travelling and not much sleep, and then they expect us to run the day we arrive. It is ! ridiculous.” Miss van Wolvelaere ran in the 100 metres hurdles final and finished second. All the athletes scheduled to compete yesterday started, except for -the promising miler, Tony Waldrop. He has ihad intestinal flu and will run 'in only the 1500 metres on i Sunday.

“I am not in the peak of condition and I do not think I would have the strength to run both races,” Waldrop said. The Kenyan 5000 metre runner, John Ngeno, who is studying at a Washington university, was to have travelled with the Americans, but he let them know a week before their departure he would not be running at the games. Two defections from the American team were the long jumper, Arnie Robinson, and the woman shot putter, Julie Brown. Both are injured.