Army skiers tops

Ruapehu Bulletin, 8 September 1992, Page 14

Army skiers tops

BY

JULIE

RICHARDSON

Sapper Grant Middendorf and Captain Sue Church from the Waiouru ski team won the titles of overall mens and womens champions at the Army Inter-re-gional Ski Championships, held at Turoa from 3 to 6 August. Both continued their success in the Army team at the Interservices ski competition the following week, also held at Turoa. Capt Church won the womens event and

Spr Middendorf was chosen to represent New Zealand in the Combined Services Team, which may compete overseas next year. Four of the Army regions sent teams to compete this year. The Southern region was unable to send a team, but 16 skiers came from Northern, Central and Wellington districts to compete with the 8member Waiouru Army Training Group team. Capt Rod Sharp of Waiouru said that although the Monday was a "washout" for skiing the weather was good enough on Tuesday for the teams to practise, and they were able to complete two slaloms and a giant slalom on Wednesday 5 and Thursday 6. The winning team was the Army Training Group from Waiouru. The scores of the best 4 skiers from each team were used to determine the winning region. The Inter-regional championships were used to select the team to represent the Army in the Inter-services competition. The Army team was chosen from the six men and two women who had performed most consistently during the Inter-

regional competition. The two women chosen were Capt Church and Corporal Jo Barrett, also from Waiouru. Local members in the mens team included Spr Middendorf and Capt Sharp. The coach for the Army Inter-services team was Tim Gall, of Central region who was also the competition controller for the Inter-regional competition. Due to the weather, the only day suitable for skiing was Thursday 13. A slalom and giant slalom were completed. The competition was

won by the Police team, followed by Air Force and then Army. The Navy was unable to send a team. Capt Rod Sharp said that results were very close, with an overall margin of only eight seconds between the combined scores of all the teams. From the Inter-ser-vices competition, three Army skiers were chosen to join the Combined Services team. They included two skiers from the northern region, Capt Duncan Ferner and Trooper Gus Walker, as well as Spr Middendorf.