Halberg In Proposed Run At Vancouver Tomorrow

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27410, 24 July 1954, Page 9

Halberg In Proposed Run At Vancouver Tomorrow

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A,.)

(Rec. 7 p.m.) VANCOUVER, July 22. Murray Halberg, New Zealand’s top prospect for the British Empire Games mile title, will probably have his first race in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia Stadium on Sunday.

Halberg accepted today an invitation to run in the two miles at a proposed special meeting for British Empire Games athletes.

Another New Zealand mile candidate, Jim Daly, a previous New Zealand record holder, will probably also run in the two miles.

It is not known yet whether the Australian miracle-miler, John Landy, will run on Sunday, but it is certain that the other four-minute man, Roger Bannister, will not be a starter. He and Chris Chataway will arrive at Vancouver from England that day. The other New Zealand competitors in Sunday’s pre-Games meeting are not yet known but it is probable some will take part in field events. Halberg and other New Zealand distance runners are still at the easypace stage of their training and have not yet done any serious time trials over the University Stadium, where the Commonwealth athletes are training for the Games.

None of the New Zealand team competed with the Australians and Canadians at a special night meeting at Aldergrove, 30 mites from Vancouver, last night. The only New Zealander who ran at the meeting was the Fijian team manager, Mr Arthur Eustace, who was second to Hector Hogan, of Australia, in the 50 yards dash. Hogan won easily in s.4sec, which equalled the Canadian record.

ijie New Zealand cyclists will compete among themselves at a special night meeting on the Empire Games board track on Saturday. The other cycling teams are also arranging a programme of events among themselves. The four New Zealand boxers who have been sparring with one another in the last few days, are to have a work-out with Canadian sparring partners on Saturday night. Tonight the boxers and their coach, Frank Pearcey, and the manager, Mr A. Hunt, are going to watch a professional heavy-weight bout between the Canadian and South American champions. The New Zealand fencing captain. Austen Gittos, who has been working his team solidly for two hours a day, has pulled a shoulder muscle slightly and may have to get medical treatment.

The Games programme is severe enough, but it is not as hard as the New Zealanders expected. Four teams. England, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, have entered and the programme will be held over six days and nights. There are 15 entries in the men’s individual foil and seven in the women’s section. All the teams’ section managers are to meet within the next few days to complete details of the Games programmes. Washington Boat Satisfactory

The Games team manager, Mr A. Ross, who visited the New Zealand oarsmen at the Vedder Canal yesterday, said this morning that the boat they had borrowed from the University of Washington suits the New Zealand four “every bit as well as their own boat.” The oars for the four, which arrived from England on Monday, he said, are first-class racing blades. Mr Ross, in a brief launch trip on the canal, had a reunion after 24 years with two oarsmen he met at the first British Empire Games in Hamilton, Ontario, where he was a member of the New Zealand eight.

The Canadians were Jack Guest, Diamond Sculls winner in the 1930’5, and Frank Reid, who rowed against New Zealanders at Burnaby Lake after the 1930 Games. Reid is coaching the Canadian eight at these Games. Big, vicious dogs are attacking the New Zealand cyclists so often along the road race course they have comnlained officially, and Mr Ross, is taking the matter up with the British Empire Games team managers’ committee.

When three New Zetland riders were out training today a dog attacked the pacemaker, and he narrowly avoided a spill which would have brought the other two down with him.

Two cyclists, Lance Payne and Peter Baird, had previous trouble with dogs. One of the New Zealand riders, in desperation, yesterday hit out at a dog with his pump. He got rid of the dog. but lost the pump connexion and had to spend a quarter of an hour looking for it.

Mr Ross will suggest to the managers’ committee that it make a newspaper appeal to people living along the road race route to keep their dogs chained while the friders are training and during the race. Arrivals From Britain

Athletes from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland arrived here by air last night, and were given a rousing welcome.

They were met at the airport by a Highland band and driven to Empire Village, in private cars with a motorcycle police escort. Tired from their long flight, the athletes were immediately hustled to their rooms, were given dinner, and settled down to a long night’s sleep. World and near-world champions rubbed elbows with youngsters with stars in their eyes today. But a sixfooter from Kenya stole the limelight from such world champions as Australia’s Miler, John Landy, and sprinter, Marjorie Jackson. Even Jackie Macdonald, of Toronto, already tabbed the glamour girl of the games, and considered a top threat in the shot-put, received little attention.

The new arrival —26-year-old Jonathan Lenemiria, from the Kvmsamburu tribe of Kenya—drew plenty of respect when it was learned he had cleared 6ft 7in in the high jump this year. That mark is the best in the British Empire for 1954 and he shbuld be a drawing card during the Games. This is the first trip out of the African continent for the nine-member Kenya team. They arrived in charge of Archie Evans, an Englishman who served with the 4th Uganda Battalion, King’s African Rifles during the Second World War, and who decided to remain in Kenya on demobilisation. Evans does not look to his scholteaching high-jumper to win the Games title in spite of his phenomenal leaps. “He’s not up to the standard he shows at home,” Evans said. “If we get weather around 70 degrees he might hit his top form, but I doubt it.” Opening Ceremonies A mammoth two-hour “military tatoo” with more than 600 soldiers, sailors and airmen plus militia units and cadets will be a feature of the Games opening ceremones on July 30. The tattoo, beginning immediately after the official ceremonies, Will include: —a fly-past by 30 Royal Canadian Air Force Vampire jets, Mustang fighters, Lancaster bombers and Canso flying boats; a massed display by 180 Navy, Army and Air Force bandsmen; a Naval field-gun race by two Navy cadet teams; a motor-cycle acrobatics display by 27 Army dispatch riders; the Navy’s “sunset

ceremony” by a 48-man guard and a 48-rnan band.

In addition, the three services will turn out a 100-man guard of honour for the Duke of Edinburgh on August 5 and for Earl Alexander, the British Minister of Defence and a former Governor-General of Canada, on the opening night.

A team of 16 ceremonial trumpeters will be on hand for all major events and four service bands will perform during the Games. In New York, the National Broadcasting Company announced that it would television the meeting of the four-minute milers, John Landy, of Australia and Roger Bannister, of England, in the final of that event on August 7. The company said it would carry the event throughout its national chain of stations.