WOMEN ATHLETES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 10

WOMEN ATHLETES.

THE IDEA NOT FAVOURED. WELLINGTON, May 12. Whether or not women should be encouraged to comnete In amateur athletics was discussed by the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association Council to-night, and the general consensus of opinion disapproved of their participation in strenuous athletio exercises. The matter was brought up by a recommendation from the Dunedin conference that a 100 Yards Ladies’ Championship event should be put on at future championship meetings and that the event should count in the championship points. Mr Amos moved that the recommendation be not supported, lie did not think that the ladies’ participation should be encouraged in such contests. Medical opinion was strongly against it. For himself he wag sufficiently conservative to think that women could be better occupied in other ways than in competing at athletic meetings. Mr Davies: Then there is the matter of girls travelling from one part of the country to another. It might not always be desirable. It was decided that the council should not give its support to the recommendation of the conference. AN IMPUTATION RESENTED. WELLINGTON, May 13. . -At the meeting of the Wellington Centro of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association to-night the chairman (Mr A. C. Kitto) took up the cudgels on behalf of girl athletes, trie propriety of whose action m competing in sprint races and travelling with representative teams was questioned at Monday night’s meeting of the council of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association. • said that he would be lacking in his duty to the ladies’ amateur athletio clubs of New Zealand if he did not raise a protest against Mr Davies’s statement. His remarks threw a stigma on the ladies' organisations throughout New Zealand, and he should be asked to withdraw-. Other members did not think that Mr Davies meant anything derogatory by speak mg against the principle of the thing. After a discussion the following motion was carried:—“This centre desires to draw the New Zealand Council’s attention to the fact that the motion regarding the inclusion of ladies’ events in the New Zealand championship meeting was advanced at a meeting of direct representatives of the centres throughout the dominion and is therefore deserving of serious consideration from thei council; further, that the delegates’ remarks concerning girl athletes travelling with the representative teams might be open to misinterpretations. and an explanation is therefore desirable.”