ATHLETICS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20005, 23 November 1927, Page 4

ATHLETICS

FOR NEXT SATURDAY BIG COOK’S GARDENS FIXTURE WANGANUI-TARANAKI CENTRE CHAMPIONSHIPS On Cook’s Gardens next Saturday afternoon and evening the Wanganui Centre of the N.Z. A.A.A. will stage their annual championship meeting. All the leading athletes from New Plymouth to Palmerston will be competing and Wanganui Club, the holders of the Championship Banner, will be fully extended in their effort to retain this trophy. Seldom indeed before have the track events been so open. The hundred yards will be especially close. Last year the order of finishing was Newton 1, Maitland 2, Wellington 3. but this year in an invitation race both Guy Broad and Telfar have been showing superior form to any of these. What Saturday will produce it is hard to say but a great race is certain. The same runners will make the 220 yards a difficult race to pick. The distance events will see Clarrie Gibbons in action, and he has few superiors in Now Zealand. If he strikes last year’s form he will make a great bid for the New Zealand mile championship. This runner will have to do his best at the West Coast Championships to beat H. K. Johnston, the Pirate Club nominee. A special attraction, practically a novelty in this district, will be the ladies’ races for which large entries have been received. The hundred yards championship and 120 yards handicap will take place. Several of the entrants have been seen out each night for some day's past and an entertaining race should eventuate. The cycling should produce more than ordinary thrills as the entries are exceptionally heavy, coming as they do from Marton, New Plymouth, Hawera, Patea and Wanganui. lan Ross will be a very harjd proposition over the shorter distances but Stenning, Wakeley and Co. will be well in the picture in the three mile. Another first-class rider entered is Blakeway, of Taihape, officially riding for the Pirate Club. With the quality and quantity thus assured there will be no lack of good racing on Saturday next.