No late entries to team

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 26

No late entries to team

I From I

ROD DEW

in Edinburgh |

No late additions will be made to the New Zealand Commonwealth Games team in spite of a general request from the Edinburgh organisers to competing countries for extra competitors. This was confirmed by the New Zealand team manager, Mr Bruce Ullrich, yesterday. “We are quite happy with the way things are,” he said. The organisers were, particularly, wanting to “beef up” the boxing fields which had been badly hit by the boycott, he said.

There are some gaps in the track and field programme which are causing embarrassment, and a number of events may no longer require so many preliminary rounds. But New Zealand’s team, the largest to travel to a major Games overseas, will not be increased. Some other teams, especially Scotland, England and Wales, are expected to take advantage of the Invitation to open for late entries.

Any late entries from any country prepared to get additional competitors into Edinburgh in time for the start would be appreciated, said the director of sport for the Games, Mr Jack Hall. The boycott had removed about 1000 corn* petitors from the Games, and the boxing and wrestling programmes had suffered as a result, he said. “Any country can still enter competitors and I am quite prepared to put them into the computer,” he said.

More than 2200 athletes and officials are still expected for the Edinburgh Games, a figure which remains in excess of the 2154 in the Brisbane Games four years ago.