Young cycling team

Press, 30 April 1981, Page 36

Young cycling team

PA Wellington Three promising young cyclists have been named as the New Zealand team to compete in a road race in Japan next month. The teenagers, Graham Hunn (Waikato), Dean Griffen (Waikato) and Eric O’Brien (Auckland), will be in Japan from May 22 to 27 but will race in only one event, a 70-kilometre race. The national selectors opted for three up-and-com-ing riders in preference to sending more experienced

and internationally recognised riders. These riders are all in present Oceania and world championship teams and to send them on tour would have disrupted their training. The manager for the allexpenses paid trip is Mr Alan Rice, of Wellington. He beat Brian Simmonds, of Wanganui, in a close ballot for the job. The trip comes just two months after a good-will tour of Japan by another New Zealand team headed by the

world record-holder, Anthony Cuff. The trip forged good cycling relationships between the two countries. Mr Bob Pratt, manager of the team in Japan, has been awarded the Malayan Cup by the National Cycling Association’s council for his services to the sport over the last 12 months. Mr Pratt, a Paraparaumu sports wear company manager and member of the council, was chairman of the cycling organising committee for the New Zealand Summer Games.