Sports foundation dinner

Press, 20 July 1979, Page 11

Sports foundation dinner

Anne Windsor may be “one of the last surviving members of a dying breed of amateurs” in sport, but is Princess Anne? The portion in quotation, marks came from the Princess during direct television coverage on Wednesday night of the Nev/ Zealand Sports Foundation’s inaugural dinner. In a world which still likes to categorise amateurism and professionalism in sport, a loose definition could be that professional sport, on the surface, is what one gets direct remuneration for. An amateur sportsmen can be one who participates at his or her own expense. So even Princess Anne can be categorised as an amateur sports woman or person. She receives a large amount of money

each year from the British taxpayer, but presumably it is untagged and she can disperse it as she chooses. She may even use some of it for the purchase of horse flesh. It follows that a wealthy person in sport has no need ever to be-

come a “professional,” but if “amateurs are a dying breed” then the rich must be getting fewer and the poor more numerous. What the Princess was possibly alluding to is the way many sports now exist through sponsorship. It seems incredible that she has never used any gear carrying some form of sponsorship at an

equestrian event. I seem to recall seeing billboards plastered around show jumping arenas with events sponsored by companies, but presumably that does not count. Ir can all depend on the way one looks at things as, for example, in the

performance of the British newspaper, “Morning Star,” which is sharply Left of Centre. On the occasion of Princess Anne’s wedding, its only reference was a brief item at the foot of an inside page. The item was about a traffic jam, which the paper said, was understood to have been caused by the wedding between a Captain Mark Phillips and an Anne Windsor.

On her participation in the Montreal Olympics the Princess noted that she had not competed with the same success as John Walker. What she did not mention was the unique position she holds as the only female participant not to undergo a sex test. But all w liverishness aside, I took a new view of the Princess in that direct telecast on Wednesday night. She appealed more in the reading of her notes (with those presumably type-written capitals with staggered lines for emhasis) than did the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, with his. Her enunciation was near-faultless. Mr Muldoon nearly

dropped a clanger. He almost said “not cremate” instead of “not create” a body of sports professionals. I would not dare to comment on Princess Anne’s dress sense except to say that she had a Euro-Tibetan look. Those lilac tonings from Christchurch earlier in the week were evident again, but this time in the floor coverings and decor — or perhaps it was the colour distortions on my TV set. Anyway I now accept the authoratitive opinion of a female friend that Princess Anne is a handsome, delicately flushed, well-groomed lady, who can speak directly to people. Whoever said that bit about her being equine in appearance because of her horsewomanship was exaggerating. I only wish she could have smiled humanly and warmly at some stage as Anne Windsor and not as Princess Anne.

By

KEN FRASER