AMATEUR ATHLETICS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2409, 15 March 1915, Page 6

AMATEUR ATHLETICS

. U4—■ CHAMPIONSHIP MEETING r.. v l WELLINGTON MEN RETAIN THE SHIELD GOOD AFTERNOON'S SPORT ,On Saturday the twenty-eighth New Zealand Amateur Championship meeting ivas held oil the Basin Reserve, under th« auspices of the New Zealand Amateur ithletic Association, and in the presence 3f about 4000 spectators. The afternoon. ivas gloriously fine, and this, coupled with the fact that the net proceeds of the meeting were to go to form the nucleusof a fund to provide, for wounded soldiers and dependents of killed and wounded soldiers of the Wellington .province, had tended to bring. the large crowd which thronged the Basin Beserve, And the sport provided was very good. The track was in excellent condition, with jiist sufficiency of spring. The rain of the previous few days'had jnst come in time to make the conditions ideal. A; feature of the meeting was the outstanding success of Wellington provinco in the championship events, for they'secured first place in every, one, with the exception of putting the 161b. shot, one mile, -and' three mile, the two last-mentioned events going to J. BeatMi, of Otago, amost promising longdistance mnner. Wellington secured 78 points for the Championship .Shield, and easily retained the trophy for another year. The points were awarded as undej;:— Wellington ......... 78 Otago 19 Southland 11 Canterbury • 8 Auckland 0 Thi! gives Wellington their ninth win, the other provinces having won the shield the following number of times:—Canterbury, eight; Auckland, six; Otago, twos Southland, one. The most points scored were by Auckland, 105 in 1896. On Saturday Auckland did not meet with any success, although they secured several thirds." Wellington also won the Queensland Shield. • The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. W. P. Massey), the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. W. Fraser), the Mayor (Mr. J. P. Luke), and the president,of the association (Mr. J. H. Pollock), who has been laid up for 6ome; time, were present, and at the conclusion of the meeting, and before the spectators had' left the ground, the trophies and shield were presented, this being a new departure. The Prime Minister was asked, to present the shield to tho Wellington team, and readily responded. -It gave him pleasure to do so, he said, and he suitably congratulated the Wellington men. At the same time, he said,, he knew, the others would take defeat like true sportsmen. The Mayor then presented the medals won. ■ ' . During the afternoon the Tramway Band added to the enjoyment of those present by. contributing numerous musical selections. 'It is estimated that the gate receipts amounted to, approximately, -E135. The officials of the meeting deserve every credit for the manner in which the afternoon's sport was conducted. The. events were -got off punctually to time, while, the notice boards were promptly, attended to,. .No Records Brokem .. As to the events themselves, while no records were broken, the times were good on -the, whole, and in several instances the standard time was beaten, while most of last year's times were bettered. The first championship event got off was the 100 yards, in which eight competitor? faced the starter. As . was confidently expected, H. Martis proved the winner in this. In his heat he won comfortably from C. Batstone (Canterbury), and in the final had no difficulty in again, breaking the tape, in 10 2-ssec.. Batstofie just beating G. Heley, the winner of the second heat, for second place. ' Martis was running in fine, form,;and when he came out for hip heat in the 220 yards , championship he delighted the crowd by just walking, away from Ithe other four competitors. Having the heat very wall in hand, and looking round to see that there was no danger, Martis slowed up, and just breasted the tape about a yard in front of F. M. Perkins (Otago). Batstone also won his heat, and in 2-ssec.' better time l than: put up by Martis, so - tho final was expected, to result in a fine finish'. When it . came on' cliief- interest centred in-" Martis and Batstone. The first-named -drew the inside Tunning, Martis being next. It was a great race, for from a beautiful start Martis set out to make the pace. Entering the straight Batstone came with a. great rush, and had Martis "full out." He. was almost level five yards from the tape, but faltered a yard or two from home, and Martis got the verdict by a yard and a half, in the standard time of 22 4-ssec., .and 1" l-ssec. better than the time put up by Martis when lie won the event last year. It was easily the best race of itlio day. Martis came out again in the 440 yards championship, as did Batstone. The latter came second, but,_ Martis gave up'when well into the etriaght. J. Beatson, of Otago, proved the best long-distance runner at Ithe meeting, by winning both the mile and .threo-mila events in easy fashion', The standard was heaten in throwing :the 161b. hammer championship "by sft. 6in.. and in the high jump championship by {in. '