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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 11, No. 6. June 3rd, 1948

"P" is P.P

"P" is P.P.

Dear Sir.—In your last issue under the heading of "V.U.C. Routed at Otago" your correspondent "—P" criticizes and suggests a remedy for the past failures of the Athletic Club which I consider detrimental to the spirit of Tournament and to the object he is trying to achieve.

By a series of biassed statistics he creates the idea that the Athletic Club has either stagnated or slipped back over the past three years. To suit his argument he conveniently lumps women's athletics with men's athletics, although the two are treated separately for points for Tournament Shield, and so ignores the fact that Victoria was second in women's athletics in 1946 and holders of the Shield in 1917. By involving himself with second and third placing he overlooks the point that counts, that is, the V.U.C.'s men's athletic team got no Tournament points in 1946, two in 1947, and three in 1948, A better indication of the progress of the club can be got from the points and placing in the Wellington Provincial Championships in competition with ten other clubs, which were—

1946 Third 32
1947 Second 37
1948 Second 49

His remarks that the Athletic Club amongst others needs blitzing and building up suggests that our Tournament failures are due to a weak club whereas in point of fact, we are the second strongest [unclear: athletic] club in the Wellington Province. If we had every Wellington provincial champion in our Tournament team we would have gained only another two Tournament points. The fault obviously lies in the general present weakness of athletics in Wellington as a whole.

The adoption of "—p's" so called remedy of restricting the teams to point getters would have meant that our whole 1946 College Tournament Team would have been restricted to two. He overlooks the fundamental point that without losers there can be no winners. With all colleges adopting his principle there would only be fields of two or three in each athletic event instead of the present small maximum of eight.

At present the V.U.C. Athletic Club bases its selection on the winners of Inter-faculty Championships who have trained consistently and given support to the club and who are of reasonable competitive Tournament standard. "—P" should remember that Tournaments are far from being merely a test of athletic ability and that the meeting of other university students and the creating of inter-university goodwill is of no little importance.

The Athletic Club is by no means ashamed of its efforts at Tournaments and feels that each one of its representatives at Tournament earned and deserved his position and that a restricting of the team on the lines suggested by "—P" would be detrimental to the strength of the club. Our time will come.

T. A. Benjamin.

Club Captain.