Canterbury’s reign comes to an end

Press, 6 March 1978, Page 18

Canterbury’s reign comes to an end

By

RAY CAIRNS

I Th« seven-year reign of i Canterbury at the top of New iZeaiand hard-track cycling came Ito an abrupt end at the hands of Auckland and Michael Richards ron Saturday evening. j In the Healing national eham-. : pionships at Denton Park, Auck-i Hand won the Points’ Shield it; last held, jointly with Canter- 1 • bury, in 1971, by the narrowest 'Possible margin. With neither I ■centre winning any points from! the senior 15,uu0m classic — that. 'great race won in a storming finish by Anthony Cuff (West J Coast-North Island! —Auckland I retained its one-point iead over 1 Canterbury. Waikato was a dis-' itant third. I Final centre points were Auckland 37, Canterbury 36, Waikato: 23, Wellington 17, W’.C.N.I. 12,! Southland 7, E.C.N.I. 2, Otago 1. j It was probably more to the! Boint that the Auckland veteran, : ick Johnstone, was the major l ; factor in his team’s narrow win. Not only did Johnstone win 10 of;, those points himself, with his 11 450m-4000m double, but he is the:; eoach of the great Richards, who J virtually singlehandedly won one of the most unusual and asto-7 dishing team pursuits in New! I Zealant; history. i < Auckland, or Richards, won the It senior 4000 m teams’ event:' against Canterbury which, with!' its smart 4mtn 52.55, could well ‘ have expected to win. And so it ’ would have, but for Richards I who, in a straight repeat of the t semi-final ride, carried his team 8 almost the whole way. Again < Paul Tnisler took the first lap, 1 then withdrew, before Richards J settled down to do three full ’ laps. He gave way for a single lap before giving way to Hugh r Gillbanks, then It was Richards B again who took the team for the a final five-laps. * That was more than the mere . mortals who comprised the j Canterbury team could cope with, even if the final margin . was only 0.35; and it was this win t

f which prevented Canterbury win., niug the Points’ Shield again. However, it could not point to : a one-man or two-man Auckland' i effort as depriving it of the tro-i phy which was fast securing a 1 permanent place in a Canterbury, J cabinet. For just as Auckland! leaned so heavily on Richards' ; and Ills coach, so Canterbury re-' Lied to a desperate degree on its boys under 16. Its absolute domination of this grade over the last three years ■ was extended still further. Shane Smith won the 2000 m and thus completed wins in all of the boys’ title events: track 450 m and , 2000 m titles, the road race, and teams’ events on both road and ;track. Canterbury won the latter :event, the four-lap Italian pur- ! suit, with Smith as its anchori man, and stretched to five its I number of consecutive wins in • ithis race. Perhaps even more astonishingly, Canterbury boys, 'either individually or in teams, ; 'have now won the last 15 New ■ Zealand titles In the grade, on .! i track and road. Not that Canterbury was not - ;well served by its older members. Ray Knight, who went so ! close to winning the senior i sprint title In 1972, this time made sure of the match-race ■ corwn, and it was in straight ! heats against Wavne Palatchle of j Welllng'ten. third time unlucky, for this was his third silver < medal. It meant that Canterbury, s after a barren 40 years since j George Giles’s successes, has < now won the title in successive i years, for Jacob Schriek won last s YEAR. Further. Blair Stockwell won t his ninth individual pursuit a medal but n tihs year of Rich- a ards, it was only the bronze, c Richards, for his part, rode only to win against Jack Swart (Walk- s ate, yet still went under sm!n ( again. ( But Richards covered an<J eov- f ered for too long and too devo- t tediy to look likely to add the (I

- senior te the eeoem title he won as a junior two years > ago. Certainly he led out, and I that was the way Richards had won the junior race, but Cuff i bolted out of the pack for his i.storming win, and Neil Lyster ! I (Wellington won the silver i medal equally convincingly from ■ ! Gary Sword, the sole represents- ' tlve of the East Coast-North Island centre yet the winner of bronze medals for both this event and the sprint. The 15,000 m win gave Cuff the Warren Johnston Cup, often thought to recognise the outstanding all-rounder of the meeting, but its points are awarded only of Johnston’s old specialties. Richards, of course, was the outstanding man of the championships, but the top junior, Eric ships, but the top junior, Eric , McKenzie (Waikato, was not that far behind. His expertise on the front of s the tandem took McKenzie and Kevin McComb to a successful defence of their title, and McKenzie also retained his junior sprint title, though he had seme semi-final nroblems with Robin I Resell! of Wellington. McKenzie was simply far too 1 tactical for Martin Dwight (Auck- ] land) in the final, and well he " bad to be. for Dwight had set a New Zealand junior record, the onlv new time for the meeting, in the semi-finals. Though falling to regain the senior team pursuit championship, Canterbury retained its junior title with a great deal of ease from Wellington, and similarly ils boys’ Italian pursuit 5 squad was never threatened, j Steve Burden got better with r every ride, taking the first lap, S and Craig Adair, Nick Purcell, and Smith were unwaveringly consistent throughout. Abbreviations used in the re- v suits are Auckland (A), Waikato S (Wke), East Coast-North Island 1 (EC), West Co-ast-Nortih Island a (WC), Wellington (W), Canter- 5 bury (C), Otago (O), Southland b (S). 1

OPEN 4080 m Individual pursuit Finals. — Third place: B. G. Stockwell (C), 5:15.7, beat P.A. Jesson (C), 5:21.a. First place: M. R; Richards (A), 4:59.3, beat J. Swart (Wta>), 5:12.5. Tandem Finals. — TMr<l place: G. Sullivan and P. Truster (A) beat Swart and S. Cox (Wko). 11.9, 12.0; Swart and Cox beat Sullivan and Trusler. U.S. First place: E. McKenzie and K. McComb (Wko) beat B. Broad antf B. E. Tall (S),

SENIOR Spring Semi-finals. — R. E. Knight (C) Vest G. p, Sword (EC), 12.9, 12.5. W. Palatchie (W) beat N. R. Lys--1 ter (W), 13.0, 12.5. Finals. — Third place: Sword beat Lyster, 12.6, 12.2; Lyster beat Sword, 12.5. First place: Knight heat Paiatchie, 12.0, 12.3. 4000 m team pursuit Finals. — Third place: Waikato, 5:0.4, beat W.C.N.1., 5:8.0. First place: Auckland. 4:52.2, beat Canterbury 4.52.5. 15,000 m Heat one: Lyster 1, H. Gillbanks (A) 2, J. P. S. Mullan (C) 3. Tall 4, Richards 5, K. Wooledge (W) 6. Jesson 7, A. Cuff 8. Time. 23:12.8. Heat two: C. Csntein (Wko) 1, Sword 2. F. M. Sch-aapveld (C) 3, K. Blackwell (Wko) 4, M. W. Litolff !C) 5, Cox 6, D. F. Palatchie (W) 7. Stockwell 8, M. J. K. Hughes (S> 9, A.

Luce (W’C) 10. Time, 20:37.0. Final: Cuff 1, Lyster 2, Sword 1 3, Gillbanks 4. Richards 5. Time, I 19:8.4. -i JUNIOR 3000 m Individual pursuit Finals. — Third place: .G. Milter (W). 4:3.4, beat M. Bo- 1 somworth (M’ko), 4:4.8. First 1 place: C. Reade (W), 3:53.4, beat t B. van der Griend (A), 4:2.0. j Sprint I Semi-finals. — M. Dwight (A),) beat JI. Mcßedmond (WC), 11.91 (New Zealand record), 12.0. E.jl McKenzie (Wko) beat R. Roselli 'i (W). 12.7, 13.2. J Finals. — Third place: Roselli! beat Mcßedmond by dis-' qualification. First place: 1 McKenzie beat Dwight. 14.2, 15.0. 1 4000 m team pursuit Semi-finals. — Wellington, 5:10.0, beat Auckland. 5:14.3. Canterbury A. 5:5.5. best Auck- f land, 5:14.3. k

Finals. — Third place: Auckland, 5:5.8, beat Canterbury B, 5:6.6 First place: Canterbury A 4:59.8, beat Wellington, 5:4.1. BOYS Italian pursuit Qualifying. — Auckland, 8;!.l, beat Otago. 2:3.1 Waikato, 2:8.8, beat Wellington, 2:12.0. Canterbury, 1:56.5, beat W.C.N.1., 2:4.5. Semi-finals. — Auckland, 2:1.5, beat Otago, 2:7.0. Canterbun, 1:57.9, beat Waikato, 2:4.1. Finals. — Third place: Otage, 2:2.2, beat Waikate, 2:2.6. First place: Canterbury, 1:58.2, beat Auckland, 2:0.2. 7t»om Final. — S. M. Smith (Ci 1, B Wills !S) 2, N. J. Purcell tC> 3. Time, 2:52.4. VETERANS 4000 m Final. — R. D. Johnstone A I, P. van der Hulst , 'Wko' 2, N. Perkinsen (A) 3. Time, 5:43.2.