1958 and another record for Michael Earwaker

A brillant run by Michael Earwaker, clipped nearly 3 seconds off the Southland record at Lumsden on Saturday.  Earwakers official time was 1.55.2  - 2.9 sec better than Ivan Starks previous best.  Earwaker had a strong back wind in the straight but officials were confident that his time would be seen as a Southland record.

The well built athlete also showed good form in the quarter mile.  He equalled the Southland open record of 49.6 sec held by Don Jowett.
The former Southland runner's time was nearly a second better than his own resident record.
Earwaker's performances overshadowed the St Paul's athlete, L. Heenan's feat in breaking the Southland resident record in shot put.
Heenan heaved the shotput a distant of 45ft 5 inches in two of his four throws -  11.5 inches better than the old record.
From an athletic point of view the day was an outstanding success for the Lumsden Caledonia Society, with 140 competitors from 12 Southland and Otago clubs.  
A feature event was the track was the senior mile which turned into a great struggle between two Otago runners, B.D. Cooper (Otago University) and G. Smith (St Kilda).  The backmarkers, Smith, Cooper and D. Holloway (Invercargill) had the rest of the field beaten at the bell.  Smith and Cooper shadowed each other up the back straight, then Cooper lengthened his stride to move away and win in a great time of 4.22.1.
Earwakers runs were all the more fantastic considering he did not have real opposition.  In the mile a fast first lap pushed him along but over the last 300 yards he was all on his own.  In the 440 yards the field opened up to give him an ideal inside run and S. McCrostie who chased Earwaker home.  Earmaker beat him by 10 yrds last time they raced which saw McCrostie get a 10 yrd handicap which they thought would make a more interesting race.
Athletic awards for most points went to Miss J. Luscombe of Winton and L.P. Smith (Balfour).
CYCLING
The cycling was robbed of some good riding with the withdrawal of some of the top cyclists.  The mile proved a crowd pleaser.  
The backmarkers bunched with the field in the final 200 yards, but frontmaker, Graham Sycamore made a well-judged run to narrowly take the win from Ray Alcock, who later annexed the two mile. 
R. Marshall showed consistent form to take third place in the two mile, after he in company with Sycamore and later Healey, had kept the backmarkers at bay to the bell. The half mile sprint went to Marshall and this time it was Sycamore who had to contend with second place.