Boxing administrator leaves for Moscow

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 24

Boxing administrator leaves for Moscow

The short list of New Zealanders who will be acting in official capacities at the Moscow Olympic Games was extended yesterday by the departure of Mr S. C. Ashton, of Timaru. Mr Ashton left for Russia to serve as one of six members of the International Amateur Boxing Association’s jury responsible for appointing referees and judges for the Games bouts. He will also be attending, meetings which will decide the association’s future policies. Because of Mr Ashton’s position as an administrator of the sport’s world body, he probably cannot be counted as a representative of New Zealand. The president of the New

Zealand Boxing Association (Mr J. B. Kent, of Wellington) said on Wednesday evening that he was not aware of Mr Ashton’s plans. But he added that if Mr Ashton went as a member of the international executive, his attendance would not conflict with the N.Z.B.A. decision to vote against competing in Moscow. Mr Ashton said on his departure from New Zealand yesterday that he would miss many old friends and associates who would not be in Moscow.

As the director of the boxing section of the 1974 Commonwealth Games, Mr Ashton had close ties with officials from African countries

that have boycotted the 19801 Olympics. Even the sport’s j international president, an ■ 'American, would be a rather lonely figure because of the absence of any. United States team. A second boxing administrator who was to have gone to Moscow, Mr K. Walker (Matamata), has apparently decided to stay at home. Mr Walker was to have been on the referees’ and judges’ panel. Apart from Mr Ashton, nine other New Zealanders will fulfil Games commitments. They include the remnants of the Olympic team — four competitors, the over-all manager (Mr T. Wilson), two section managers (Messrs J. Clark a n d J. Grant), and a doctor (Dr

G. Campbell) — and also Mr’ C. L. S. Cross, the chairman of the national Olympic executive and a member of the International. Olympic Committee executive.

Mr Cross will be very much involved in the 1.0. C. deliberations as to the very future of the Games. Although Mr Wilson is also president of the New Zealand Amateur Rowing Association, it is not known whether he will act in that capacity at any meetings held in conjunction with the Olympics. Two New Zealanders, Messrs A. J. Donaldson (Nelson) and D. R- Truscott (Christchurch), hold prominent positions . on F.i N A., the world swimming administrative body. But both will

be missing from the F.I.N.A. congress. “In my case, as a member of the technical committee for synchronised swimming, I would not? have been required to gosaid Mr Truscott yesterday. "It was decided in Tokyo last year that there would be no need for our committee to be assembled.”

The New Zealand delegates were to have been Mr Donaldson, ’ n h’ s ro^e , chairman of the F.I.N.A. swimming committee, and Mr M. R. Duckmanton (Christchurch), who had been chosen as swimming’s section manager. Mr Donaldson decided to stay home when the bulk of the New Zealand squad withdrew, and Mr Duckmanton, of course,

was one of those withdrawals.

Mr J. Keys, the N.Z.A.S.A. secretary, said yesterday that no influence had been exerted on Mr Donaldson and that his decision was a personal one. Mr S. Grange, of Australia, will keep a [watching brief on New Zealand’s behalf at the F.1.N..A. congress. ' The Moscow Games will be the first the prominent national and Canterbury amateur wrestling administrator, Mr J. A. Mclnnes, has missed since the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. He attended five as an international judge and referee and went to Montreal solely as a delegate, the function he was also to have filled at Moscow.