Stewart takes ski title

Press, 17 August 1977, Page 21

Stewart takes ski title

Peter Stewart and Virginia Bush were narrow winners of the Canterbury championships titles contested at the Amuri Ski Club.

Stewart, who has done little of note in ski-ing in the last year or two, made a successful comeback to beat Alistair Cooney and David Cooney, both members of the Canterbury team. The Cooneys were the only members of the provincial team or the national squad who competed at Amur!—all the others were training at Mount Hutt. Alistair Cooney beat Stewart into third place in the one run of the giant slalom but the latter was superior in both runs of the slalom and was a combined total of 2.2 sec faster than the Tekapo youngster The 1976 Canterbury champion, Tim Sheppard, had a good run in the giant slalom but a slow effort in the first run of the slalom cost him a high combined place —he finished sixth over-all.

An interesting competitor in the men’s event was the Amuri club skier. Bill Gardner, who represented New Zealand several years ago. Gardner was seventh in the combined placings. Miss Bush skied consistently in both the slalom and the giant slalom for second placings and just took the combined title from last year’s champion, Debbie Bain.

Miss Bain clearly won the slalom by 7.lssec from Miss Bush but could finish only third in the giant slalom, well behind Clare Acton-Adams and Miss Bush. A mishap in the second run of the slalom precluded Miss Acton-Adams from finishing any higher than third in the combined placings. In the absence of the leading Canterbury skiers, the major feature of the championships was the successful revival of the old inter-club competition.

Most of the clubs in Canterbury entered teams of four and

the best three times for each were counted. Tekapo won the competition narrowly from Craigieburn.

Abbreviations used in the following results are Amuri Ski Club (A.S.Cj, Craigieburn Valley Ski Club (C.V.S.C.), North Canterbury Ski Club (N.C.S.C.). Tekapo Ski Club (T.S.C.):

MEN Slalom: P. Stewart (C.V.S.C.), 40.50 (first run), 39.30, 1:19.8, 1; A. Cooney (T.S.C.), 40.90, 41.10, 1:22.00, 2; D. Coonev (T.S.C.), 40.20, 42.33, 1:22.55 . 3; A. Fraser (T.S.C.), 40.95. 42.95. 1:23.90. 4; R. Kuhn (C.V.S.C.). 42,40, 42.50, 1:24.90, 5; W. Gardner (A.S.C.), 43.40 , 42.40, 1:25.8, 6. Giant slalom: A. Cooney, 76.15. 1; T. Sheppard (N.C.S.C.), 77.45, 2; P. Stewart. 77.65, 3; D. Cooney, 78.60. 4; R. Kuhn. 78.65. 5; D. Stewart (C.V.S.C.), 78.80, 6. Combined: P. Stewart, 105.501, 1; A. Coonev. 105.674, 2; D. Cooney, 107.919, 3; Kuhn, 109.360, 4; Fraser. 109.557, 5; Sheppard, 111.222, 6. WOMEN Slalom: D. Bain (T.S.C.), 43.85, 44.05, 1:27.90. 1: V. Bush (A.S.C.), 51.20, 43.85, 1:35.05, 2; M. Tyndall (N.C.S.C.), 48.95, 48.90, 1:37.85, 3; C. Acton-Adams (N.C.S.C.), 44.90, 63.50, 1:48.40, 4; N. Smith (N.C.S. 58.40, 57.40, 1:55.80 , 5. Giant slalom: Acton-Adams, 80.90. 1; Bush, 83.90, 2; Bain, 90.30, 3: Tyndall, 90.35, 4; Smith, 107.35, 5. Combined: Bush, 118.851, 1; Bain. 119.515, 2; Acton-Adams. 123.257. 3: Tyndall, 125.109. 4; Smith, 143.223. 5. TEAMS Tekapo Ski Club, 228.034. 1; Craigieburn Valley Ski Club. 229.815. 2; North Canterbury Ski Club, 234.822, 3; Amuri Ski Club, 240.384, 4; Methven Ski Club, 241.020, 5; Christchurch Ski Club. 253.301. 6.