Top cycling entry

Press, 14 October 1986, Page 36

Top cycling entry

All New Zealand’s leading cyclists have been given a start in the 1986 Raleigh Classic. The field for the Wellington-to-Auckland race, to start on November 2, includes the former winners, Stephen Cox, Jack Swart, and Brian Fowler. Other top riders include the upset winner of this year’s national road championship in Hawera, Bruce Storrie, a former Commonweath Games bronze medallist, Roger Sumich, a top road rider, Graeme Miller, his brother Allan (a former world junior track champion) and a former national road champion, Eric O’Brien. The national selectors have helped seed the riders into five groups for the rich team's prize. Gavin Stevens has been promoted to the New Zealand team in place of a fellow Aucklander, lan Richards, who has an injury which will keep him out of racing for some weeks. Stevens is joined in the New Zealand team by Storrie, Graeme Miller, a 1986 Commonwealth Games representative, Paul Leitch, and Peter Coates. Allan Miller will lead the New Zealand emerging riders. He will be joined by two Aucklanders, Craig Connell and Craig McMillan, and the Wellington pair, Wayne Morgan, at present in Australia with the New Zealand

team for the Brisbane-Can-berra race, and Darren Rush. The other 15 New Zealanders in the 50-strong field have been place in three domestic teams. The first of these promises to be a real threat. The Cox brothers, Stephen and Blair, are joined by Jack and Stephen Swart and Fowler in a most experienced quintet. The second domestic team is largely Auckland-based, with Sumich and O’Brien joined by Michael Griffiths and Karl Wood and the third of the Miller brothers, Paul, of Hamilton. The other New Zealand team will be headed by the 1985 road champion and 1986 Commonwealth Games representative, Craig Griffen. He will be joined by his fellow Waikato riders, Tony Catterick and Andrew Whitford, the third of the Cox brothers, Greg (Taranaki), and Nathan Dahlberg (Palmerston North), just back from France. John Harris (Auckland), Brent Ferigo (Canterbury), Dean Buzan (Canterbury), Stu Imrie (Palmerston North) and lan Harris (Gisborne) are on standby for a place in the event: Teams from Australia, Japan, Switzerland and Great Britain will also take part. The fifth overseas team is likely to be a combined “All Stars” line-up.