Cross country chances good

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 64

Cross country chances good

Canterbury has a good chance of winning the senior men’s women’s, and junior men’s, national cross ■ country running titles in Invercargill on Saturday. Last year in Auckland, the Canterbury men won the six-man senior event, and four-man junior event, and the province’s women were third. Included in the Canterbury men are five of the winning team from last year — Don Greig (fourth), Tom Birnie (fifth), Bruce Rattray (sixteenth), Geoff Prendergast and John Sheddan. The only one missing is Allan Sinclair. Rattray and Prendergast have improved since last year, and Sinclair’s absence will be more than made up for by the inclusion of Dave Burridge, Neil Lowsley and Andrew Stark.

New Zealand will send a team of eight men and six women to the world cross country championships in Switzerland in March, and the selectors will look to performances this season and road races in the summer. Mary O’Connor and Sue Bruce will spearhead the women’s team, though competition will be strong from Waikato, Otago and Auckland in particular. Elliot Drayton and Kerry Faas will hold the junior men’s victory hopes, while Caroline Barrie and Rachel Depree will lead the junior women’s challenge for the title. Mary O’Connor carries Canterbury’s best hopes for an individual title, with strongest competition perhaps from Waikato’s Diane Rodger, the titleholder, Gail Rear (Northland), Marguerite Buist (Otago), and Wellington’s Tina Wild.