Walker eyes record

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 33

Walker eyes record

One of the most durable and most decorated of New Zealand athletes this week attempts to take for himself a long-standing national record. Geoff Walker holds a record rare among New Zealand men: the only one to represent his country in three sports at senior level. But while his swimming days are long gone, and Walker forwent the chance to be part of the canoeing successes of 1984, he has remained a very active part of the surf lifesaving scene.

So much so, in fact, that, a year ago Walker completed the rare treble of surf ski titles at the Westpac national championships: within a couple of hours, he won the double-ski with his Waimairi club-mate, Kevin Baker, and paddled home the first-year junior, Craig Stevens, in the ski rescue. But while he’s reluctant to admit to the fact, surely Walker’s most satisfying moment was to win the surf ski title for the sixth time. It equalled the record of

the old North Beach campaigner, Rex Dalton, and at Mount Maunganui this week, just down the road from Dalton’s present residence. Walker will attempt a recordbreaking seventh win. He will be making the effort on a ski he got last year in Australia when contesting the world championships as part of a small but very successful New Zealand team. Il is the only ski of its type in New Zealand, a model put out by the distinguished old Australian, Gordon Jeffreys, not only a ski paddler of note but also three times an Olympian in canoeing. And Walker is being faithful to the craft. Gone are the days when he would contest, vigorously and successfully, the iron man, taplin relays and board events. He is concentrating solely on the three ski events in which he holds national titles, and the ski relay. Ever a realist, Walker retreats from a suggestion of repeating his historic hat-' trick. “For one, I’ve heard a rumour lan Ferguson and

Paul MacDonald might be paddling the double-ski at the Mount, so that would be very hard. It would make the double a good one to win. But Kevin Baker and I do have a bit of a record: we’ve won medals each of the six times we've paddled together and twice won." Walker is not in much doubt that Steve Richards, of Red Beach, who succeeded the unavailable 36 year old as New Zealand's first-choice surf ski paddler, will be the man to beat in the single event. And he’s not expecting the world in the ski rescue. "I’m very lucky with young Craig Stevens as a patient: he paddles board and ski as well, he’s light enough and has good balance. But it’s such a mickey-mouse event that it always has to be a bit of a bonus.” Walker, as mentioned, is 36, but age has never been much of a factor to him. He is, after all, always comforted by the fact that the renowed Fergusson is older — if only by a day.