Fiji’S Human

Dolphin Slips

Through

The Net

As in football (see oppo

site), so in swimming. That,

anyway, is the reaction in Fiji to the news that 12-

year-old Fiji swim star

Olive Pickering is off to Australia to swim for a

Sydney club and eventually

qualify for the NSW state

championships stepping

stone to the Olympic Games.

She is to be trained by NSW coach John Down, who has recently been coaching in Fiji.

Mr. Bown arranged for her to go to Australia—indeed, her parents and her sister and brother are emigrating t°o —where it was hoped she would get better opposition in training and make greater progress than she could in Fiji.

"The greatest"

Olive is the greatest female swim prospect the colony has had.

She represented Fiji at the 1966 South Pacific Games in Noumea, and although she was much younger than all of the other women com petitors, she won two silver medals and one bronze. She later won five gold and four silver medals in NSW country championships.

Better training, harder opposition and a chance to get on to the bottom rung of the ladder to greatness are fine things for young Olive, whose whole life revolves around swimming.

But again, Fiji’s loss is somebody else’s gain. There is no question of professionalism here of course, but Fiji had hoped Olive would be the first-ever swimmer at an Olympics to have “Fiji” across her swim-suit.

Perhaps in 1968, or in 1972.

Now, obviously, this will not be.

If Olive makes the grade and does appear in an Olympic Games, she will be wearing “Australia” across her costume instead.

Australia, already one of the richest countries in the world in swimmers, will have gained yet another star at Fiji’s expense.

That’s no personal reflection on

Olive. But it rankles.-

A. F. Tinsley.