Much promised by cross-country team

Press, 23 March 1985, Page 80

Much promised by cross-country team

NZPA staff correspondent Paris

The national cross-coun-try team has settled well in Lisbon and its manager, Alan Stevens, is confident tomorrow’s world championships will end with New Zealand back on its way up the international rankings.

The team had trained without problems or injuries since arriving on Monday and Mr Stevens was optimistic of good results, especially from the women. In last year’s championships in New York the women finished third and “we would like to think we could repeat that placing,” Mr Stevens said. He added that three of the members of last year’s second placed United States team were not competing in Lisbon, which would enhance his side’s chances of success. He said he was also confident the men, who finished eighth last year would “start to move up through the placings again.” New Zealand’s placings in recent years have been

disappointing compared with the 1975 championships in Morocco when the men came home first and the women second. In the 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1983 championships the women finished third, fifth, fourth and sixth. The men fared less well, coming home fifth, thirteenth, twelfth and fourteenth. The men’s chances this year have been knocked back by the unavailability of the Olympic steeplechaser, Peter Renner, and the withdrawal

through injury of Dallas McCallum. However, Mr Stevens said there was still the basis of a good team. It will be led by Rex Wilson (Hawke’s Bay), the national road and cross country champion, supported by the Aucklanders, John Bowden and Ken Mahoney, Canterbury’s Michael Gilchrist, Tom Birnie and Bruce Rattray, Derek Froude (Wellington) and Greg Cameron (Otago). Mary O’Connor (Canterbury), who finished nineteenth in New York, heads the women. Other team members are Sue Bruce (Canterbury), Christine Pfitzinger (Auckland), Gail Rear (Northland), Lyndon Wilde (Auckland) and the young but fast Oklahomabased Christine McMiken. The competition should be tougher than in the past. An offer by the International Amateur Athletics Federation to pay half the competing teams’ airfares has resulted in more than 50 countries entering, a third more than last year.