Sport: First winners of Snell awards will get funding

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Forty years after that unforgettable golden hour at the Rome Olympics, Peter Snell and Sir Murray Halberg are still out there and doing all they can in the hope young Kiwi sportsmen and women will have the same opportunities they enjoyed.

The sporting legends are in Invercargill today for the first of five lunch or dinner engagements which will net almost $200,000 for the Halberg Trust which distributes up to $700,000 a year to children with disabilities.

"It is much more than just handing money out to encourage children with disabilities into sport," said Trust spokesman Dave Currie. "We want to help these children become involved in mainstream sport and recreation.

"The response to these functions has been overwhelming. We have sold out in Invercargill [420 seats], in Wellington [600], Christchurch [880] and Queenstown [420]. Only in Auckland, where we have already sold 800 tickets, are there any left."

The functions are heavy on nostalgia, with films of the pair in Olympic action. There is also significant coverage of the recent return trip Snell and Halberg made to Rome.

For Halberg it was especially poignant because he had recovered from a major cancer scare and was able to take his wife, for the first time, to the scene of his Olympic triumph.

Fittingly, the Auckland lunch on September 14 will be held at Eden Park, where the pair ran some great races on the grass track in the early 1960s in front of crowds close to 50,000.

Snell is taking time out on his latest trip Down Under to further endorse the Peter Snell Institute of Sport, of which he is a board member.

The institute, with Colin Kay as chairman, yesterday announced the first six recipients of the Peter Snell scholarships, which will provide funding for the young athletes and their coaches.

Included in the six are two Mark Bone-coached swimmers.

Fifteen-year-old Corissa Thompson and Jennifer Simmiss, aged 13, are regarded by Bone as young swimmers of real talent.

"Jennifer Simmiss is the most talented swimmer I've seen," said Bone, who recently shared the heartache with another of his swimmers, Nikki Tanner, who opted out of the Sydney Olympics.

"In the Auckland championships, Simmiss slashed an unbelievable 4s from the national 200m freestyle record held by Sarah Catherwood, who four years ago swam at the Atlanta Olympics," Bone said.

"The money from these scholarships will, I hope, be used to give our young sports people access to a sports science programme at the Tamaki campus. It will also assist in getting them away to Australia and vital international competition."

The other inaugural scholarship winners, selected after 98 schools had been asked for nominations, are Auckland gymnast Alethea Boon, athletes Michael Stringer and Jordon Panoho (both Northlanders coached by Ian Babe) and the multi-talented (basketball, volleyball and athletics) 18-year-old Andrea McBride.

"We hope that once they have completed their scholarships with our institute, these outstanding youngsters can be passed on to the New Zealand Sports Foundation academy programme," Kay said.

"We hope to assist up to 40 young sports people in our first year."