£l0,000 WANTED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 305, 16 March 1928, Page 11

£lo,ooo WANTED

Olympic Authorities Send Out Urgent Appeal for Funds TEAM MUST LEAVE BY APRIL 28 IF the sum of £IO,OOO can be raised in time, New Zealand will send a party of 20 athletes, including a rowing team, to the Olympic Games. But the team must leave by April 28, and transport arrangements require to be confirmed by March 20.

TF £IO,OOO can be raised a party of 20 athletes, including a rowing team, will be sent from New Zealand to the Olympic Games. An order of preference for the first five representatives has been laid down. S. A. Lay. Hawera, javelin-thrower, is first on tin.* list. Miss Norma Wilson. Gisborne girl sprinter, is second. Three swimmers. D. P. Lindsay and Misses Ena Stockley and Kathleen Miller, are ranked next. When the council has raised £ 1,300 the selection of these five will be definite. If it obtains £5,000 beyond that it will send a rowing team (12 men in all), to compete in the eight-oar, four-oar (with coxswain), double-scull, and pair-oar Olympic championships. After that, other representatives will be chosen according to the money( if any) available. MORGAN'S SELECTION DEFINITE Six athletes have been named in the list announced by the council, but E. Morgan, amateur boxer, really is not affected by the order of preference, the New Zealand Boxing Association has donated £SGO, which is sufficient: to send Morgan to the Games, and which has been earmarked for that purpose. Taking it by and large, the council’s choice of the first five seems to approach fairly closely the two objects that should be kept in view in the selection of a team that is to travel such a long distance to the Games—the winning of Olympic championships and the acquisition of knowledge of modern method?, for inculcation among the younger sports folk of the Dominion. Some risks must be taken, of course. The only doubt we have about the five athletes named is whether the council has not taken rather too great a risk of failure in choosing three women in a party of five, as the chance of women being below their best form

on the day of competition is so mu greater than it is with male athlete- ? Otherwise, the performances of tr I girls who have been chosen, and the* | possibilities of improvement, jusur | their selection. THE APPEAL FOR FUNDS It now rests with the people of XV Zealand to say whether the team?L go. The sum of £IO,OOO is needed, at I needed urgently. Already sports bod £ all over the Dominion are tackling::question of raising funds in earner j and although the amount aimed < j seems large on paper, it works out; I about £I.OOO a province; and If ever person who has the welfare of X v Zealand sport at heart, were to pu: ; a shilling or two, the amount wo: I soon bo raised. It is these small sums as much «; f big donations that can help the fat jj along. The general public is nvited jj I give the appeal its immediate j earnest consideration, and forv; £ their contributions to THE HON. SECRETARY, N.Z. Olympic Association, Box 400, Wellington.