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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 28, No. 5. 1965.

Saturday

Saturday

1.05am: Scrounged a ride home with a guy and his girlfriend. They weren't quite sure where our street was, but we arrived eventually. One of the nice things about tournaments is meeting friendly characters like these two.

6.30am: Hi-yo Silver and away. As we left to go out to Corsair Bay for the rowing, we actually managed to have a few words with our billet.

Not a greatly distinguished performance by the Victoria rowers. In each event VUW were never far behind, but never in a place. The Eights was a good race between CU and AU, only half a length separating them as CU crossed the line first. The order was reversed in the novice fours, where AU cleared away for a three-length win.

The Single Sculls were won by OU from CU, the only entrants. The Lady's Fours, an invitation event, was a walkaway for CU The VUW ladies rowed valiantly, but their three weeks' practice compared to CU's three years of rowing together was painfully obvious. CU edged awav from OU in the Double Sculls, and three CU crews took the places in the College Fours.

In the final race, an NZU Eight squeaked home against the Canterbury Provincial Eight. VUW was represented by John Gibbons, and their cox. This completed the Tournament rowing—it seems a bit daft that with transport costs for rowing shells being what they are, a fuller programme cannot be organised.

11.53am. Arrived at the Hagley Park basketball courts just in time see the VUW team beat CU 32-30. This was quite a shock—everybody had expected VUW to be run off their feet, but instead some very nice basketball was played A little while later, playing the fearsome OU side, VUW traded goal for goal for half the match until the superiority of the physed specialists began to show. Jan Wright and Lyn Almond were the mainstay, sidestay and all the standing rigging of the VUW team.

5.21pm. We went into the tournament Headquarters and managed to extract some results. The cricket team left their declaration a bit late against AU on Tuesday and the game was a draw. The main feature of VUW's innings was a splendiferous 105 not out by P. J. Webb. CU drew with MUM and OU had a first innings win against CAC.

Unfortunately, VUW collapsed against CAC on Thursday and suffered a first innings lass. OU had another first innings win, against MUM this time, and looked fairly unbeatable. CU drew with AU.

A further disappointment came when we had a look at the yachting results. VUW sailed very consistently to come last in the two races held. OU and AU had a first and a second each, CU two thirds.

6.32pm. We saw one of the VUW shooters, Chris Robertson, with a great smirk on his face. It turned out that VUW had not only finished second in the .303 rifle event, but had given the winners and defending champions, CU, the fright of their lives. This was the first time in four years VUW collected any Tournament points for shooting. Roger Girdlestone shot consistently well to be top on overall aggregate points, and Ken Tustin was first equal on the application aggregate. The influx of new shooters referred to in Salient's Tournament preview, Girdlestone, Graham Wakefield and R. Wilde, would be the reason for this unexpected success. It looks like VUW shooters are going to be a force to be reckoned with at future tournaments.

6.47pm. At last the athletic results had come through. VUW were trailing with 24 points compared to CU's 33 and OU's 29, but were ahead of AU, 17. Gillian Davies had won the women's shot put and high jump, and VUW won the men's 4 x 110 yards relay by five yards from CU. Second-place getters were Barry Meyers in the 3000 metres steeplechase, Penny Haworth in the 100 yards and the 80 metres hurdles, and B. Collins in the long jump. Alan Osborne and A. Robinson qualified for both the 100 and 220 yards, B. Matthews and G. Hall-Watson for the 440, Bill Wilson and Brian Milne for the 880, and Murray Boldt for the 220 yards hurdles.

7.23pm. Arrived at the swimming just in time to see Brian Crowder of VUW win the 440 freestyle. After a little contretemps with the records officials we found that Sue Murphy, Liz Stanford, Prue Brock, Sue George, K. Thornton and John Palmer had all qualified for finals, and that Wayne Mullins had dived well for second place.

We then watched Palmer hose away from the rest of the field in the 110 freestyle, and Thornton take a good second in the 110 backstroke. At this stage it appeared the swimming was wide open with no particular team amassing a lead.

7.58pm. We met an Auckland vachtie who told us that the VUW boat had been becalmed in one race and sunk in the other. It figures.

8.00pm. VUW met CU in Water Polo. Previously VUW had beaten MUM 11-4 and AU 9-4, CU beaten 6-2 and MUM 17-2. Both teams had an excellent defence, but the VUW attack was very weak compared with CU and they went down 10-1.