Cycle sprint champion unlikely to be tested

Press, 16 December 1981, Page 46

Cycle sprint champion unlikely to be tested

Four, of the five-strong New Zealand professional cycling team will be on show at Denton Park this evening, their final appearances before leaving for Australia on Saturday.

The Timaru members of the side, Colin Ryan and John Reid, are to line up with and against Terry Gyde and Steve Doherty, the only missing team member being Wayne Hillary, of Dunedin. They will, in company with the rest of the professional fields, be contesting an 800 m handicap race, a “Devil take the hindmost” — both of these in two grades, a 1600 m wheel-race, and two other scratch races, over 1200 m and 8000 m. There is an added attraction in the professional fields, too — Russell Nant will have his first starts of the season.

Even so, there seems little likelihood of Ryan, the present Australian and New Zealand sprint champion, being tested in the Air New Zealand meeting. He made a cleansweep of the inter-pro-vincial carnival at Timaru

during the week-end.

It will be a different story in Tasmania, however, where the Australian challenge — led by its local hero, Danny Clark, the world kieran champion — is bolstered by the top-ranked Swiss, Urs Freuler (the European omnium sprint champion) and a regular Swiss national champion, Hans Kanel. The five New Zealanders have a heavy programme in the island state. They are racing on Christmas Day and Boxing Day in Latrobe, and on December 28-29 at Devonport. The following day, they have a night meeting at Launceston, another at Burnie on New Year’s Day, and a six-day race between January 3 and 9, again at Launceston.

The full programme is worth $23,000.