SKATING TRIALS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31096, 27 June 1966, Page 16

SKATING TRIALS

P. Bastion Does Well "The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON. It was a great day for Christchurch at the final national roller speed skating trials at Foxton yesterday. The local champions, Gerry Glover and Robyn Alexander, both virtually clinched world championship team selection with unbeaten runs. Glover, the amateur roller skating association of New Zealand road champion, teamed well with his Christchurch clubmate, Phillip Bastion, a late addition to the national training squad, to win the 5000 metres. Earlier he had come through a series of 1000-metre sprints unbeaten. In the only women’s event, Miss Alexander fought through a torrid finish to win over two miles. She beat home the promising Nelson competitor, Judy Williamson, and the triple national champion, Marlene Macdonald, of Masterton, in a finish in which only five yards separated the field.

Times were not taken, the selectors Instead stressing team racing. With new national 5000 and 10,000 metres records to his credit in the preliminary trials at Nelson early this month, Glover is now unquestionably New Zealand’s top speed skater. His selection in the team to travel to the world titles in Madrid in October appears only a formality. Miss Alexander, too, is a virtual certainty, while Bastion could with his impressive performance over the last month have also clinched selection.

The New Zealand speed team to compete at the world titles in Madrid in October will, along with the artistic team to travel to Germany, be named later this month.