DAVIES FORCED TO WITHDRAW

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31109, 12 July 1966, Page 19

DAVIES FORCED TO WITHDRAW

(New Zealand Press Association!

ROTORUA.

A persistent foot injury has forced J. L. Davies, New Zealand’s top miler, to withdraw from the Empire Games team which leaves for Jamaica later this month.

Davies officially informed a national athletics selector, Mr C. J. Thompson, last Friday that he had withdrawn. “I am still bothered by the injury to my foot and I have not been training as much as I would like,” Davies said. “I am not 100 per cent satisfied with my condition and could not guarantee what condition I would be in for the top competition that one would expect at Jamaica.” Davies said that he would train as much as he could and hope the,injury came right before next season. Earlier. Davies had announced his withdrawal from the three miles, for which he had also been selected, and from a pre-games tour with W. D. Baillie.

In the 1962 Empire Games at Perth Davies followed P. G. Snell home in the mile to give New Zealand the gold and silver medals. At the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, he was third behind Snell and J. Odlozil, of Czechoslovakia. The New Zealand representatives in the one mile will be I. S. Studd, who failed to qualify for the one mile in the English championships in the week-end, and A. G. Pyne, now in the United States.