Help Papua-New Guinea Team

International Experience Will Help Papua-New Guinea Team

South Pacific Games Preview

From Kevan Gosper, P-NG team manager at the Perth Games and a former Australian Olympian.

A strong, enthusiastic team of 70 sportsmen and women will represent Papua-New Guinea at the first South Pacific Games. The team, headed by Mr. C. Y. McCubbery as general manager, will take part in athletics, basketball, soccer, lawn

tennis, boxing and swimming.

THIS will be the largest contingent of any kind to represent the Territory in any international forum, but not the first.

Last year, P-NG entered the stage of international sport at Perth by sending 10 athletes, four boxers, one weightlifter and seven lawn bowlers to the British Empire and Common wealth Games.

The experience gained there will stand the team in good stead at Suva.

The Territory’s track and field reprentatives, captained by the ex perienced and speedy Bruce Richter, contains good material by South Pacific standards.

At the Papua-New Guinea Terri tory Championships and Suva Games trials, held in Rabaul in July, certain performances were most encouraging.

Bruce Richter won the double sprint with an “even time” 100 yards and a snappy 22.3 sec. 220 yds. He capped these performances with a fine anchor leg in the short relay in what appeared to be his best run of the championships. Richter, with Commonwealth Games experience and more than six “sub-10” sec. 100 yds. sprints behind him, will be a strong contender for sprint titles in Fiji.

The high jump event should estab lish the supremacy of New Guinea's

Edward Laboram in the Pacific.

Laboram rose to 6 ft. 6 in. in Perth last year before he was eliminated.

This proved both his ability as a jumper and his big-time competition temperament.

His best performance since is 6 ft. 5 in. and only the lack of any close competition for the past 18 months has prevented him from

going higher.

The javelin event will probably re veal the superiority of Fiji, as they have throwers capable of 230 ft. or more. New Guinea’s best is infantry man Oe who is currently throwing the spear around 210 ft. This lad is a steady performer who represented P-NG in Perth in 1962.

Our other representative, high

jumper Laboram, is now around the 200 ft. mark and expresses shy con fidence of equalling Oe’s distance.

A new event to New Guinea is the pole vault. However, from out of nowhere a student, Malatana, came out at the recent Territory Champion ships and soared over an uncoached 11 ft. 3 in. This was a spectacular performance even though world records for this event are beyond 16 ft. With technical assistance, Malatana may ascend to 12 ft. at Suva.

Among the Territory’s other repre

sentatives, miler Mike Joyce is run ning under 4 min. 35 sec. for the four-lap event. Charles Harrison is sprinting the 440 yds. at 50 sec. as well as broadjumping 22 ft. 6 in. and triple jumping 45 ft.

P-NG’s remaining three sprinters Vuia, Sale and Muga are even time runners for the 100 yds., with Vuia capable of 22.5 sec. for the 220 yds.

Vela and Joyce will both contend the 800 yds., Vela being the better of the two with the ability to run a two-minute half mile.

Hiob will throw the discus credit ably, and jumping performances by Tolom and Bola should register be tween 22 and 23 ft. Quarter-miler Maina and sprinter Muga will make up the balance of the men’s athletics team.

Two women athletes, Lydia Ellison and Iva Haro, will be the first two Papua-New Guinea women to repre sent their country in international sport. Lydia is considerably superior to any other girl in the country and runs strongly. However, the women athletes have a big gap to bridge before they approach the Betty Cuthbert-Wilma Rudolph standard.

Tremendous Progress

Considering that 18 months to two years ago a pair of running spikes was literally unheard of in P-NG, tremendous progress in athletic stan dards and general public support has been achieved.

The standard of organisation and conduct of the Territory Champion ships held in Rabaul equalled any meeting of similar size I've seen any where in the world.

Editors’ Note: P-NG’s basketball soccer, tennis and table tennis teams, and its boxers and swimmers are also expected to provide strong com petition at the Games. The swim ming representative on the council of the Territory’s Games Association, Mr. G. Toogood, says swimming trials on July 7 were “highly success ful”.

Bruce Richter, of Port Moresby, winning the 100 yds. sprint in the record Territory time of 10 sec. flat at the P-NG amateur athletics championships at Rabaul on July 6. Left to right are Muga, Richter, K. Wong, J. Vuia and Sale. The photo was taken by C. H. Meen.