New Zealand’s “Olympics”

Billed somewhat dramatically as “New Zealand’s Sporting Event of the Decade”, an extravaganza dubbed the New Zealand Summer Games was introduced in January featuring nine sporting codes including table tennis. Venues were spread among five centres throughout New Zealand with the table tennis played in the Auckland Stadium.

For eight sports it was a consolation event. For table tennis it was a bonus. The other eight codes (track and field, gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, judo, cycling and swimming) were all Olympic Sports. All had trained and peaked for the Moscow Olympics in 1980. All were disappointed to be caught up in an international boycott of the Games led by the United States in protest over the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan.

But table tennis had no Olympics to miss out on and still had the world championships to look forward to later in the year. The Games were therefore an unexpected and welcome opportunity for additional international competition. And with China and Japan participating, world class table tennis was assured. It was hoped that eight nations would comprise the table tennis competition, including New Zealand, but with England, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Hong Kong and the United States all declining the invitation the field was reduced to six. Canada, Indonesia and Australia joined China, Japan and hosts New Zealand.

Twenty-three nations competed in the Games overall. With the exception of gymnastics and boxing, public support was disappointing. And, despite the China/Japan clash and the scintillating table tennis it promised (and delivered), spectator numbers were less than hoped for at the table tennis as well.

Team events were played on 24/25 January and individuals on 27/28. Both New Zealand teams managed just one win. The men beat Canada 5-4 thanks to a rampant Richard Lee who won his three matches and a level-headed Malcolm Temperley (pictured) who won two including the decider at 4-4. Temperley was representing New Zealand for the first time. The women beat Australia (Denise Millikan, Shelley Munday and Adele Morrow) by five matches to three. It was a good team effort with Jan Morris and Angela Brackenridge winning two matches each and Shelley Palmer one. NZ’s fourth player, Debbie Looms, didn’t play in the Australia contest.

Barry Griffiths and Stuart Armstrong completed the NZ men’s team. Griffiths’ performance in his first exposure to top level international competition ranged from spectacular peaks (he took a game off China’s Jiang Jialiang who in turn beat Japan No 1 Hiroyuki Abe in their team match) to troughs such as his three losses against Canada. Armstrong, selected as a developing player, was thrown to the wolves against China and Japan.

The selection of in-form Temperley ahead of two-time and reigning NZ Champion Graham Lassen was a surprise. James Morris was not selected either, possibly because he had declared himself unavailable for the World Championships to follow in April.

China beat Japan in both the men’s and women’s team finals.

A highlight of the tournament was the singles between Jiang and Abe referred to above. 16 year old Jiang beat his more experienced and super-energetic opponent in a long range counter-hitting duel that must have strained the neck of the umpire almost as much as it entertained the audience. The result was reversed when the same two met again in the individual semi-finals. Abe’s opponent in the final was top seed Cai Zhenhua (19). The left-handed Chinese star won three straight in another crowd-pleasing spectacle. Within three months Cai would also become world doubles champion.

The women’s singles was won by Chen Jieling (18) who had upset the top seed, Chinese compatriot Yan Guili (25), in the semi-final.

Several NZ players not selected in the team participated in the individual events but team members Richard Lee and Jan Morris were the only New Zealanders to make it through to the second round of the singles, both beating Indonesian opponents. Lee and Griffiths, and Griffiths and Morris won their first round matches in the men’s and mixed doubles respectively.

Richard Lee had an excellent tournament. In addition to his three wins against Canada he won NZ’s only two games against Indonesia and was the sole winner against Australia, beating Rodney Carlisle. Paul Pinkewich and Laurie Skeate both beat Griffiths and Temperley in that contest, and Skeate beat Lee. Among the women, Jan Morris did well with a three-straight win over Indonesian champion Beatrix Pietersz in the teams event.

A 23-person organising committee drawn from all Associations in the Auckland area was assembled for the tournament, the largest international event ever hosted in New Zealand. Television coverage was extensive.

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World Championships – Par for the Course

In Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, New Zealand trod what is becoming a well-worn path at the World Championships. Our teams have consistently won against nations ranked below us but regularly fail, sometimes narrowly, to secure that elusive win which would significantly lift our world ranking. Consequently the women remain securely in the middle of category two (they finished with a ranking of 27th, up from 29th in 1979), and our men played off among the second place-getters in category three to finish 39th, down from 36th.

The women’s team was Jan Morris and Shelley Palmer, joined (at her own expense) by reserve player Kadia Rice; and Richard Lee, Malcolm Temperley and Barry Griffiths comprised the men’s team. The team manager was Keith Pointon. Lee had a good record in the team contests, winning 16 singles out of 22 played. It was the 26 year old’s 6th World Championships. The record of 17 year old Griffiths, attending his first, was almost as good: 15 wins out of 22.

The women beat Ireland, Italy and USA, and lost to Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Malaysia and Belgium. They also lost a pool match to USA before beating them in a re-match at the play-off stage. The men, playing in the lower-ranked category three, beat Mexico, Palestine, Yemen, Nepal and Luxembourg. They lost to Singapore, Greece and Brazil.

Only Shelley Palmer progressed beyond round one in the individual events although Barry Griffiths and Kadia Rice both did well in consolation events, winning bronze medals.

Unlike recent World Championships when other nations took at least a token share of the titles, China let nothing go this time and won every event including both team contests. Tong Ling was women’s singles champion and Guo Yuehua, the unlucky 1979 finals defaulter through injury, won the men’s and was to retain it in 1983. Men’s singles winner at the New Zealand Games, Cai Zhenhua, became world doubles champion, partnered by Chinese compatriot Li Zhenshi.

Although there was no Commonwealth Championships preceding the Worlds this year (they were postponed till 1982 – refer 1980 article), our players were given a reasonable warm-up with first, the New Zealand Games in January, and then an intense seven days training in Melbourne with the Australian team en route to Yugoslavia. An unofficial international was played between New Zealand and Australia at the conclusion of the training, won by Australia.

While the costs per player were high, air fares were considerably reduced when the New Zealanders were given an opportunity to travel from Melbourne to Belgrade with the Australian team and take advantage of a generous travel concession the Australian TT Association had negotiated with a Yugoslav airline.

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(Nearly) All-Morris NZ Championships

With Jan Morris winning the NZ women’s singles and doubles (with Angela Brackenridge) and James Morris winning the men’s singles and doubles (with Richard Lee), they would have been hot favourites for the mixed doubles as well had they entered as a pair. A win there would have made it a total whitewash. But out of loyalty they both played with established partners from their home districts: Jan with Maurice Burrowes and James with Angela Brackenridge. For the record, Geoff Rau and Christine Lee won the mixed doubles with Jan and James Morris (and their respective partners) both reaching the semi-finals.

The two Morrises are personally unrelated but their careers are developing a remarkably parallel relationship. Both are experienced internationals and both have been ranked near the top in New Zealand since 1975.

For Jan to win the women’s singles she had to face an in-form Debbie Looms in the final – a player who had beaten her four times already this season, including the North and South Island finals. And the incentive for Looms to win was huge: it would not only give her the New Zealand singles title for the first time, but also give her the North / South / NZ treble – never achieved in one year by a woman before.

The final started well for Morris – she won the first two games 21-19, 21-15. But Looms hit back to win the next two 21-13, 21-13 and had built a 10-7 lead at the change of ends in the final game, putting Morris under extreme pressure. Looms lost the lead at 12-12 but was still hanging on at 15-16. Then what could only be described as sheer determination saw Morris drive home her miniscule advantage to win 21-16. It was her third successive NZ title.

The pattern of results between these two South Island table tennis giants is interesting to say the least. While Morris won the NZ title three years in a row (meeting Looms in the final this year only), Looms has won the last four South Island titles, beating Morris in the final every time. And prior to that, Morris beat Looms (then a junior) in the 1977 final and in the 1976 semi-final.

Debbie Looms (Debbie Stratford from September this year) was destined never to win the NZ women’s singles title.

Male Morris also Memorable

A succession of good performances by James Morris restored his No 1 ranking, last achieved in 1978, and won for him the Player of the Year Award. (pictured)

He regained the NZ men’s singles title, previously won in 1976, by beating his doubles partner Richard Lee in a five-game final. He and Lee retained the doubles title (beating unseeded juniors Alan Pedley and Alan Shewan in the final) and the pair have now won every year since 1976. And he crowned a superb season by winning the North Island and South Island singles, becoming only the fourth player to achieve the treble so narrowly missed by Debbie Looms. Bob Jackson, Bryan Foster and Richard Lee were the previous three.

Australian Juniors Dominate

A selected team of Australia’s best juniors participated in our national championships. It was indeed a star-studded line-up and included Shelley Munday, who had represented Australia at the World Championships and was currently their top-ranked woman; and Karl McKernan who had supplanted Gary Haberl as Australia’s junior champion while still aged under 16. The three boys and three girls played as Australian teams in the Under 18 teams events, winning both decisively, and then competed in the Under 18 and Under 16 individual events which they also dominated. New Zealand’s only glimpses of the silverware in those age-groups were when Kadia Rice and Kristen Phillips (both ranked among NZ’s top ten women) won the Under 18 girls doubles, and when Gina Stapleton shared the Under 16 girls doubles with Australia’s Wendy Hughes. Australian players won all the other eight titles.

The young visitors didn’t rest after the junior events. Two of the girls beat seeded players in the round of sixteen to reach the open singles quarter-finals – Under 16 champion Wendy Hughes beat eighth seeded Ann Gyongyos and Under 18 champion Shelley Munday did even better with a win over 1978 (and 1982) NZ champion Shelley Palmer. In the quarter-finals Angela Brackenridge beat Hughes and Jan Morris beat Munday.

The Australian girls’ performances drew media headlines such as “Juniors a Smash Hit”. But even upstaging them was 15 year old Karl McKernan. He won five junior titles including the Under 18 and Under 16 boys singles, and then went on to cause mayhem in the open men’s singles. In the round of sixteen he beat Malcolm Darroch (seeded 7th) in four games and in the quarter-finals caused the upset of the championships by beating title-holder and 3rd seed Graham Lassen – finishing that crowd-stopper with a decisive 21-14 win in the fourth game. He lost to eventual winner James Morris in the semi-final. The talented Australian was clearly under-estimated with his exceedingly young, almost baby-faced features and casual playing style. Morris struggled to win the first game 25-23 before racing away in the next two.

New Zealand’s own junior star, Barry Griffiths, did not compete as he was training overseas (refer later article).

It was an exciting tournament overall. Played in Napier and well-attended, it was the first NZ Championships ever held in which every New Zealand Association entered a team in the men’s inter-association competition.

Hawkes Bay had previously hosted the national championships as recently as 1978.

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Junior-of-all-trades Wins Award

He has represented Canterbury as a junior for the last two years; he organised the weekly interclub for his local sub-association (North Canterbury); he was media liaison person for draws and results; he was North Canterbury senior selector and has served on the management committee for two years. And this year came the ultimate responsibility - he was elected President.

Nicholas Smith was only 16 years old.

He was successfully nominated for the Junior of the Year Award and at a function in Christchurch, NZTTA Vice-President Trevor Flint presented him with the HN Ballinger Cup.

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Treble Junior Treble at North Islands

It’s not uncommon for a star junior to win the singles, doubles and mixed doubles in one age-group at one tournament. But at the North Island Championships this year it wasn’t just one junior who achieved it, it was three. Barry Griffiths did it in the Under 18’s, winning the singles and both doubles partnered by future NZ champion Peter Jackson and 1982 junior champion Kadia Rice.

The Under 16 star was Wendy Cuthbert, still remembered for representing the South Island at the age of 12 in 1978. Her partners were her 14 year old sister Yvonne, and Richard McGillivray. Dominating the Under 14’s was Gary Traill, partnered by his brother Murray and Yvonne Cuthbert.

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One Stadium Opens, Another Burns

Amid a burst of media publicity, a new table tennis facility was opened in Whangarei on 9 May. It was the climax of three years planning and of nine months intensive work led by Building Committee Chairman Buck Batger and Northland Association President Darky Woodman. The multiple and varied fundraising projects included a block-buster lottery organised by James Morris which raised $30,000.

Relatively small in terms of table space (seven tables), the stadium was lavishly appointed with additional facilities: carpeted lounge, committee room, shop, storeroom, changing rooms and showers.

Two days of special table tennis events were held to mark the opening, with NZ’s best players participating.

The media coverage included a phenomenal list of 124 New Zealand Championship titles won, or shared, by Northland players over the past 25 years.

Disaster in Auckland

Later in the year, on 25 October, fire damaged part of the Auckland stadium. In a stroke of good fortune, the entire 22 table playing area escaped the flames but the entrance, administration block and canteen were destroyed along with office equipment, furniture, irreplaceable records and at least two highly valued trophies. The building was insured. A 16 year old local youth was apprehended and charged with arson.

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Peter Hirst Legacy: Coaching Manual Published

After English coach Peter Hirst had completed his third annual visit to this country in early June, the essence of his teaching and a large amount of his written material were condensed and collated into a coaching manual by David Cook, himself an experienced coach and a member of the NZTTA executive.

Peter constantly stressed the importance of educating as many coaches as possible and of imparting to them the same general principles so that trainee players can easily move from one coach to another and from one level to another.

More than 200 coaches attended seminars run during Peter Hirst’s visits over the past three years.

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International Training For Barry Griffiths

Barry Griffiths became the first table tennis player to receive financial assistance from the NZ Sports Foundation, a funding body set up in 1978 to distribute grants to individual elite athletes. It managed a separate pool of money from the Ministry of Recreation and Sport which bulk-funded national sporting associations, including table tennis.

The grant, negotiated by NZTTA, totaled $4,900 and enabled Barry to travel to Sweden for eight months of coaching, training and high level competitive play. He left NZ in early August. Earlier in the year, the Auckland Association had sponsored him on a trip to England for several weeks training prior to the World Championships.

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No Success at Australian Open

A group of Aucklanders travelled to the Australian Open in Brisbane after the NZ Championships. Kerry Palmer, Peter Jackson, Lindsay Jarvis, Bob Lassen and Barbara Jackson made the trip but were unsuccessful. The women’s singles champion was Adele Morrow and the men’s Paul Pinkewich.

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Juniors Tackle Australia: Plenty of Success

As noted in an earlier article, six top Australian juniors competed in the NZ Championships and in the main they out-performed our own young players.

But our top juniors had two other opportunities to prove themselves against Australia and on both occasions did the job admirably.

The Australian Junior Championships underwent a number of scheduling changes between 1980 and 1985. In 1980 there were two events (May and September) for two different age-ranges. This year NZ attended only one tournament, conducted in early June for just the Under 17 age-group. The inter-State team contest was part of this tournament. The same programme was maintained in 1982-1984 but then the championships moved back to September (preceding the Australian Open) in 1985.

Some impressive successes were recorded by NZ players at this year’s Australian Junior Championships in June. The biggest triumph was the girls singles title, won by New Zealand’s Kadia Rice fresh from the World Championships. Not to be outdone, Barry Griffiths and Peter Jackson won the boys doubles and Griffiths and Rice combined to win the mixed doubles. Only the boys singles and girls doubles eluded the New Zealanders. In the inter-State team events, the NZ boys came first and the girls second. Overall, it was a superb collective performance.

The full NZ team was Griffiths (boys captain), Jackson, Alan Pedley, Alan Shewan, Wendy Cuthbert, Catherine Fogarty, Monique Van der Aa, with Rice the girls captain. The championships were held in Tasmania.

Full International

The other competitive opportunity between the two countries was a full junior international, played while the young Australians were here for the NZ Championships in August. Teams of three faced each other. It was the first such contest as New Zealand’s matches in Australia in June had been against State teams only.

With Barry Griffiths out of the country (training in Sweden) Jackson, Pedley and Shewan were obvious selections for the boys team after their success in Australia. A re-selected girls team comprised Kadia Rice, Wendy Cuthbert and Kristen Phillips.

Against all predictions, the New Zealand boys won. The top two Australians (Karl McKernan and Alois Rosario) had dominated the just-completed NZ junior individual events, but Peter Jackson hit top form and beat both of them as well as Australian No 3, Gary Jordan. Alan Shewan beat Rosario and Jordan, Alan Pedley beat Jordan and NZ won both doubles including a stunner when Pedley and Shewan beat NZ Under 18 champions McKernan and Rosario 21-19, 21-13. NZ won the contest 8-3.

The girls lost 4-7. Kadia Rice beat Wendy Hughes and Keri Walsh, Kristen Phillips had a great win over NZ junior champion Shelley Munday 21-14, 28-26; and NZ junior doubles champions Rice and Phillips beat Hughes and Munday.

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Auckland Host NSW Women

After bringing a group of New South Wales men to New Zealand for a 21 day tour in 1980, this year the Auckland Association arranged for four women from the same Australian State to tour the upper North Island prior to competing in the New Zealand championships in Napier.

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Umpiring Awards for Juniors Introduced

Two new trophies were added to the silverware adorning the table at the NZ Championships presentation ceremony. The annual recipients were to be the boy and girl judged to be the best junior umpires officiating at the championships. Veteran South Canterbury player, organiser, umpire and journalist Frank O’Gorman proposed the idea and dedicated the two large silver cups to Alan McCallum (whose long career as an umpire and Canterbury administrator ended with his death last year), and his wife Edna. The criteria for the Alan and Edna McCallum Junior Umpiring Awards were fully laid out in later years and one requirement was that the winners would be chosen only from candidates nominated by their Associations prior to the NZ Championships.

The inaugural winners were Tanya McAvinue (left above) and (right) Greg Bellamy. Mrs Edna McCallum (centre) presented the awards.

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Queen’s Honour for Table Tennis Administrator

In the New Year Honours List Auckland administrator and two-term NZTTA President Dick Rassie was recognised by the Queen and awarded an MBE for services to sport, specially table tennis.

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