Tremendous Task For 14-Year-Old Girl

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30976, 4 February 1966, Page 15

Tremendous Task For 14-Year-Old Girl

Tui Shipston, the slender 14-year-old girl who has taken Canterbury swimming by storm this season, will discover how she compares in international competition when she matches strokes at the Centennial Pool tomorrow night with another 14-year-old, Mary Ellen Olcese, the world record-holder for the 440 yd medley.

Miss Shipston, who has swum only one competitive 440yd medley, will be the odd girl out in a field of five glittering with talent. Her rivals will be four of the six United States girl swimmers who arrived in < hristchurch from New PlyI rnuth last night in the course of a New Zealand tour. Besides Miss Olcese the ethers in the race are Sharon Finneran, a former world rec-crd-holder at the distance, ,’udy Humbarger and Dolores Heiffer. 28sec. Slower The Canterbury record, established by Miss Shipston last month, is 28sec slower t tan Miss Olcese’s world mark. But at New Plymouth this week the American girl covered 220 yd medley in 2min 43.55ec, which is only 2sec better than Miss Shipston’s New Zealand junior record. Miss Shipston will not win, but the race presents her

with a splendid opportunity to stake her claim as a potential Dominion representative. The American visitors, most of them blondes with attractive tans—several shades of which were acquired in the North Island—met members of the council of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming

Association soon after they made their first landfall in the South Island last night. The chairman of the council (Mr A. J. Donaldson) presented the six girls and their manager-chaperone (Mrs J. Krauser) with kiwi lapel badges fashioned from Paua shell. Seasoned Swimmers Apart from Miss Pfeiffer, the girls are seasoned world travellers, all in the good name of swimming, and Mrs Krauser has taken association teams—equivalent to provincial sides—to Jamaica and Mexico. New Zealand officials are certain to sound her out on her views of these two important sporting centres. Mrs Krauser, who, as June Fogle, was once a noted breaststroke swimmer in her own right, said New Zealanders had shown a keen interest in the amount of hard work tackled by training by her charges. Two to three hours on a non-competitive day was normal, she said. On the day of competition at least an hour to an hour and a half was spent training and there were always solid warm-ups undertaken before a race. In Six Events At the Rothmans carnival tomorrow night Christchurch swimming followers will be able to assess the value of the vast preparation that is part and parcel of the American girls’ swimming careers. Four individual events and two relay races will give the visitors the opportunity to demonstrate the ability that has taken all six into world rankings. Misses Olcese and Finneran will swim breaststroke and medley; Cynthia Goyette, breaststroke and backstroke; Jane Barkman, freestyle and backstroke; Miss Humbarger, medley and backstroke and Miss Pfeiffer freestyle and medley. Miss Finneran will also take part in the 220 yd freestyle event, with the national champion, Alison McMillan, leading the home challenge.

The photograph above shows, from left, Cynthia Goyette, Mary Ellen Olcese, Judy Humbarger,

Mrs krauser, Jane Barkman, Sharon Finneran and Dolores Pfeiffer.