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Harriers' good run

By Sports Editor

The Wellington to Masterton Relay, which is to members of the running clan what the Melbourne Cup is to racegoers, this year attracted 27 teams of 10 runners each.

The distance covered by the Relay is some 62 miles. The laps are of varying distance ranging from the 3.9 miles from Kaikohe to the Summit to the 7.9 miles from the Summit to Featherston.

Many nationally known runners participated, the best known being Maddaford, Ryan, Sirl, Rose, Julian and Baillie.

Teams from the top half of the North Island continued the dominance of the Relay with Owairaka leading the way again.

Four of the first five teams home were from the Auckland area.

The first Wellington team home was Wellington Harriers who finished in seventh place. Last home was Methodist with an estimated time of 7 hrs. 38 mins.

Although the Victoria team's overall placing was twelfth, the same as last year, the time recorded — 5 hrs. 49 mins. 22 sec. — was 6 min. 36 secs. faster.

This was also the fastest time recorded by Vic for 12 years when the Club finished third overall in 1956.

Victoria previously won the Wellington to Masterton Relay in 1954 and 1955.

This is a feat which no other Wellington club has been able to repeat.

Victoria did extremely well considering the team suffered the loss of John Souter who has moved to Timaru: Roger Titcombe who was out with a foot injury and Len Watson, who, being a junior was not eligible to compete.

The chief architects of the improved time were Colin Morris who improved his time for the second lap by 2 min. 18 secs.; Tony Wool - house who cut 1 min. 48 secs. off the time for the fourth lap; Ian Stockwell who reduced the lap 9 time by 1 min. 52 secs. and Bullock, who took 2 mins. 3 sec. off the last lap time.

Bob Wilson and Tony Burge also improved on last year's time for their respective laps.

Star performance for the Vic team was undoubtedly that of Woolhouse who recorded the fourth fastest time for lap 4 out of the 27 who ran this lap.

He also broke the Club's own record of 23 min. 48 secs. established in 1956 by J. Stewart, by substantial margin, with his time of 21 min. 51 secs.

Another creditable performance was that of Bob Wilson on the Kaitoke to the Summit lap.

His lime was the seventh fastest overall and only just missed the club record of 25 min. 7 secs., established by Tim Beaglehole in 1964, by one second.

Victoria also succeeded in re-affirming their supremacy over Massey (who finished fourteenth) in team's races.

This was a filling conclusion to a very satisfactory outing for Vic's harriers.

Victoria's team was: G. Seconi, C. Morris, J. Callaghan, A. Woolhouse, T. Dravitzki, R. Wilson, A. Burge, L. Williams, J. Stockwell, D. Bullock.

Sue Lothian (Victoria) shooting is out at Winter Tournament. Sue, the only woman competitor, went on to make the NZU Smallbore Rifle team.