Good, Tahitian

More reports on how Pacific sportsmen are faring

N. Hebrides Athletes Look

Basketballers Still Top

Like other less affluent territories, the New Hebrides have had to give the budget the controlling vote in selecting their team for the South Pacific Games. Quality has to be the first consideration in a team of only 39 men (including 15 footballers) and seven women.

It is possible that the final size of the team which goes to Port Moresby may be smaller stiff. It depends on a policy decision to be made by the New Hebrides SPG Committee.

Question: should entries be based solely on the achievement of stan dards, or should potential ability— with an eye on the Fourth Games — be the guiding factor? This one has yet to be answered.

Meanwhile there is no doubt that the New Hebrides will be producing some strong competitors. Of the ath letes under consideration seven have already this year bettered the stan dards set by the Papua-New Guinea AAA in their events.

Who gets left out?

Chief coach Alan Bell says that he has a problem in deciding which athlete to leave out of the men’s 100 metres—four have bettered the P-NG AAA standard—and that the New Hebrides’ strength lies in the men’s and women’s sprint events, where he anticipates a good showing.

But he’s hopeful that some younger athletes in other events will be able to reach the finals. However, like all good coaches, Bell is not saying everything and the chances are that he has something up his sleeve.

Football is another event in which the New Hebrides expect to do well.

Veteran team manager Remy Dela veuve is confident that his team will be considerably stronger than the one which went to Noumea and that ‘goal keeping nerves’, which were a major factor in the New Hebrides’ defeats there, have been truly overcome. He hopes to arrange a visit to Vila by a Noumean team in May to give the New Hebrides some match practise.

A four-man boxing team has been entered, but boxing is a new sport in

the New Hebrides. Three inter-island matches in the last six months have produced several boxers with real po tential, but whether their standards are yet up to the Games will only be discovered in August.

The other events for which the New Hebrides are entered are golf, tennis and judo. Unfortunately the territory’s strongest golfer (Senior Geologist Dr, Don Maffick) will not have achieved the three-year minimum residence requirement, and two of the other logical selections will not be available; British District Agent Dick Hutchinson will be on leave and Alan Bell, who will be accom panying the athletics team, will be defeated by the great distance between the Lae golf course and the Games venue at Port Moresby. Even so, both the Vila and the Santo golf clubs are strong and intend that the team they finally select will put up a good showing.

A team of four has been entered for the tennis and the general feel ing is that the New Hebrides will stand their best chances in the mixed doubles.

Judo entries are expected to be of a high standard. In the New Hebrides the sport is based solely upon Santo but strength is lent to the club there by Japanese fishing interests at nearby Palekula.

Four members of the Santo Judo Club have been examined for, and have passed, their Black Belt stan dard in Japan! • Sukarnapura, capital of West Irian, which in Dutch times was called Hollandia, and which was re named by Indonesia, has had another name change. Indonesia announced in March that it would now be known as Djayapura.