UNIVERSITY ATHLETES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 63, 14 March 1940, Page 5

UNIVERSITY ATHLETES

AUSTRALIAN TEAM

ARRIVAL IN WELLINGTON

The five young Australian university athletes who are making a short tour of the Dominion arrived from Auckland this morning. They are D, B. Dunn (Sydney), B. A, Curtin (Sydney), W. Arrowsmith (Queensland), G. L. Wilson (Queensland), and G. Parkin (Melbourne), and they are accompanied by a manager, Mr. L. Philpott, secretary of the Australian University Sports Association and secretary of the Sydney University Sports Union.

On their arrival at the station the Australians were met by Mr. H. McCormick, chairman of the New Zealand Olympic and British Empire Games Association Council and hon. secretary of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association, as well as representatives of the Victoria University College Amateur Athletic Club. They were the guests of Sir Thomas Hunter, principal of Victoria College, at morning tea at the college, after which their programme for the day included a visit to the Exhibition. Tonight they leave for the South Island, going to Dunedin, where they will make their next competitive appearance on March 18. On their return to Wellington they are to compete at an electric light meeting at Lower Hutt on March 28. Their main appearances will be at the New Zealand University athletic championship meeting in Christchurch on March 23 and 25.

In an interview, Mr. Philpott said that each member of the team was a top-notcher in his own particular event, and in Dunn, who had run the 100 yards in 9 3-ssec and the 220 yards in even time, they had a sprinter who was considered to be in world class.

Dunn is the athlete who, as reported earlier in the week from Sydney, was discharged from the militia on the ground that he has flat feet. Mr. Philpott said that Dunn usually runs with his feet strapped. He indicated at Auckland on Tuesday night that ht is running as well as ever, despite this condition and the fact that before he left for New Zealand he had been suffering from influenza. Although he had only been off the boat a day, Dunn ran the 100 yards in lOsec, so that the indications point to some brilliant performances from him during the visit.

Mr. Philpott feels sure that the team as a whole will make a good showing There was some disappointment, he said, that the team did not include a high jumper. R. J. Heffernan (Melbourne), a good jumper, had been unable to make the trip at the last moment.