Ambitious ski programme

Press, 29 November 1978, Page 36

Ambitious ski programme

by

TIM DUNBAR

Nine of New Zealand's top ski racers — the largest number ever organised by the New Zealand Ski Association — will train and compete in Europe during the northern winter, This is just part of the rapid progress being made in ski-racing as New Zealand starts preparation for the Winter Olympics of 1980 (Lake Placid. New York) and 1984. With 1984 in mind a “junior development group” of 14 skiers (including three women) will leave on Monday for Keystone, Colorado. Allen Fraser, Bill Brownlee, Dean Stewart and Roland Kuhn (all Canterbury) have been selected as the most promising ones. As well, the newly appointed national coach and alpine director, Mr Jan Tischhauser (Switzerland) has successfully established a “ski pool,” similar to that employed by most other nations. The top New Zealand racers will be under contract to use various manufacturers’ products solely for a certain period of time. “The equipment will be provided free and the manufacturers will contribute : financially to the pool: the money will be used to fin-

ance the racing programme,” said the convenor of the N.Z.S.A.’s racing committee (Mr Richard Johnson).

“If we get the industry behind us, we’ll get the results for the industry,” he said.

In the new year the N.Z.S.A. will make a major effort in fund-raising to finance the ski-ing programmes —aimed from juniors to regionals to the top bracket. “We aim to raise and spend $50,000 a year from now on,” said Mr Johnson.

Three of the top New Zealand _ downhillers — Anna Archibald, Stuart Blakely and Julian Morris (all Canterbury) — have already left for Europe and are training at Tignes, France. Lack of finance and manpower meant that New Zealand was not able to “mount” a downhill team. Fortunately the trio has been able to secure attachment to overseas teams.

Miss Archibald will race with the French women’s team on the World Cup downhill circuit -while Blakely and Morris will join the powerful Austrian team. “This is a tremendous thing for us —• getting three people doing downhill with two of the top teams in the world,” Mr Johnson said. The advantages in the

move can be seen in the manpower that the French team, for instance, can employ. For eight girls there will be five coaches, all with videotape cameras, standing on different parts of a downhill course.

Blakely and Morris will be involved with a country which produced five of the top 10 in the downhill on the last World Cup circuit. Names like Franz Klammer (the Olympic gold medallist), Josef Walcher, Ulrich Speiss and Werner Grissmann are revered in Europe. Some much appreciated co-operation from the Australians has helped cover the tour costs of the leading New Zealand slalom and giant slalom exponents, Fiona Johnson and Julia Allison, who will leave Christchurch at the end of this week. Misses Johnson and Allison will make up a combined women’s team with three Australians — Mariila Guss, Christina Cantrell and Jackie Cowderoy. Mr Tischhauser chose to coach this group as he believes that the two New Zealand women have the best chance of breaking through to the top levels. There will be concentration on the slalom-giant slalom circuit, mainly Europa Cup, with some World Cup races.

The New Zealand downhillers should be in action first at the World Cup event at Vai d’lsere in France between December 6 and 12 and then at Vai Gardena (Italy) on December 14.

Last to leave this country will be a men’s team of Mark Vryenhoek (Canterbury), Warwick Brown (Taranaki), Scott Kendall and Evan Bloomfield (Auckland), which will spend two and a half months from Christmas on the F.I.S. and Europa Cup slalom and giant slalom circuits. All four teams will receive some sort of assistance from the N.Z.S.A. with the top six skiers (the downhillers plus Vryenhoek and Misses Johnson and Allison) getting 60 per cent of the financial cake between them.

The top four juniors will also be helped and Mr Johnson says that the whole group of 14 going to Keystone will be able to get “two months of ski-ing without missing any schoolwork. at very reasonable cost.”

Dave Ingram, the Canterbury coach last winter, will coach the team and Dr Joe Brownlee will go over as manager with an additional aim of “endeavouring to buy some decent timing gear.”