N.Z. selectors name biggest team for Moscow Olympic Games

Press, 16 April 1980, Page 40

N.Z. selectors name biggest team for Moscow Olympic Games

Against a background of controversy and uncertainty over the Moscow Olympic Games, New Zealand last evening chose its biggest team for the sporting festival.

The team includes two defending Olympic champions, John Walker, the 1500 m runner, and the men’s hockey team; nine members of the successful Montreal team have been retained. Two of them, the Christchurch brothers Selwyn and Barry Maister, have been chosen for their fourth Olympics, as has the sharpeyed Christchurch smallbore marksman, ' lan Ballinger, winner of the bronze medal in his specialist event at the 1968 Mexico. Games. Previously, the only New Zealander to have been chosen for four Olympics was the Auckland shot put and discus thrower, Les Mills. John Walker’s globe-trott-ing track colleagues, Dick Quax and Rod Dixon, were both certainties for selection. Quax, who was the silver medallist in the 5000 m in 1976, will be off to his third Olympics and his sixth consecutive games. It will also be Dixon’s third Olympics; he was fourth in the 5000 m in Montreal after carrying off the

bronze in the 1972 Munich Games. . Several others are also fronting up for a third time at Olympic level, emphasising the depth of experience in the team. Among them are the doyen of road cyclists, Vern Hanaray, who has now set a cycling record of being chosen for five games overall, and the M e t h v e n-bom Lindsay “Lew” Wilson, the sole survivor of the gold medal eight-oared rowing crew from Munich in 1972. , The 31-year-old Hamilton public servant has been out of top rowing for several years but will be bidding for a third Olympic medal. He won a bronze in the eights last time. The only boxer originally nominated, the giant young Aucklander, George Stankovich, is a surprising omission, but his even younger brother, Andrew, is one of 16 athletes with until May 18 to produce selection-compelling I compelling performances. i Fourteen of them are swimmers, and that sport!

was given special dispensation to return late performances. The “last-chance” week-end for the swimmers is at Christchurch on May 10 and 11. The other sportsman on tenterhooks is the road cyclist, Steve Cox, of Hamilton. Provisionally named only by the cycling selectors, Cox is now overseas seeking a worthy performance or performances to back his claims. But Cox aside, cycling has done very well by the Games selectors, one of whom. (Mr Dutton) has a long background in the sport. The team’s experience is chiefly apparent in the men’s hockey team- As well as the Maister brothers and their records, five other members of the team will be going to their third Olympics — Alan Mclntyre, Jeff Archibald, Greg Dayman, Ramesh Patel and Arthur Parkin. All these players, as well as Tony Ineson and Paul Ackerley, contributed to the triumph at Montreal.