No national ski-ing coach

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34133, 21 April 1976, Page 30

No national ski-ing coach

(By

KEVIN TUTTY)

The absence of a national ski-ing coach this season has left the three district associations in New Zealand with the responsibility of coaching the top racers. For the last three years, Mr Ron Sargent, from the United States, has coached the New Zealand A and B squads, but he will not be coming to New Zealand this winter. The difficulties and cost of getting skiers together in the squads, and the fact that many of the top racers are still at school, unable to take time off college, are some of the factors behind the demise of the national coach concept. The New Zealand Ski Association has increased grants to the associations — the Ruapehu Regional . Ski Association, the Canterbury Ski Association and the Southern District Ski Association — to enable them to develop their coaching.

The Canterbury association has already put its programme into operation. A squad of 22 skiers has been announced, from which the Canterbury A and B teams will be named. ft is hoped again to obtain the services of Werner Hanni, a Swiss, who had outstanding success with the Canterbury team last year. If he decides to come to New Zealand he will coach the A team, and the N.Z.S.A. is interested in appointing him to coach a national team at International Ski Federation races in Australia in the middle of the season. Hans Hoffer, who won the Queenstown Pro-am last year, will probably coach the B team. He was the instructor at the Craigiebum Valley Ski Club last year.

Those named in the Canterbury squad are:— Men.—G. Gilkison, C. Morris, J. Morris, J. Light, A. Cooney, D. Cooney, M. Bushell, M. Vryenhoek, T. Sheppard, A. Frazer. Women.—R. Wells, S. Gibson. F. Johnson, J. Allison, A. Archibald. M. Smith, L. Nelson, D. Bain. F. Deans, K. Allison, M. Tyndall, M. Morris. The squad will start training in May and continue a regular programme up to the first national circuit race of the season — the Mount Hutt Early Bird Trophy race on July 10 and 11. It is the first time this race has been on the national circuit list and it will feature another first. Instead of the usual slalom, a parallel slalom — where skiers race be-

[Side each other on a dual course — will be run. ; After the event the Canterbury teams will be named [from the squad. The Mount Hutt race will signal the start of a busy month for the Canterbury skiers because on the following two week-ends will be the South Island championships and Canterbury championships. The season will finish with the national championships, again at Mount Hutt, from September 12 to 19 — the week after the school vacation.