STUDENT MASQUERADE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22622, 27 April 1948, Page 5

STUDENT MASQUERADE

WON WOMEN’S BOAT RACE SYDNEY, April 26. Male university students disguised as women won the second semi-finals of the women s inter-faculty pair oar championship on the Parramatta River. The winners easily rowed away from the opposing crews over the last 100 yards of the quarter-mile race and after passing the winning post continued up the river at a high rate. Suspicious of their performance, the umpire pursued them in a speedboat when, as one masquerader said: "We showed our colours immediately like good pirates.” Disqualified Their disqualification was announced shortly afterwards. The men were engineering undergraduates who had disguised themselves cleverly by the use of paper padding, blonde wigs and make-up and by shaving their legs. "Our motive was not entirely screwball,” said one masquerader. “The engineering faculty is keen to win the trophy for the best faculty in athletics, but is the only one in the university without women students. "This was the only way we could make points in the women’s events. "The girls recognised us when we pulled up to the starting line, but they just giggled and kept quiet,” he said.