Renowned sportswoman dies

12.45pm

UPDATE - One of New Zealand's best-known sportswomen has died. Lawn bowler Millie Khan suffered a heart attack in Rotorua overnight.

The 65-year-old won silver in the singles at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland in 1990, and bronze in the same event in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

She retired from international competition after the Malaysian games.

Ms Khan, who played for the Matamata club in Waikato, held 12 national bowls titles in singles, pairs and fours, the last being in 2001.

In November last year, Khan became the first Waikato bowler to win a 30th centre title and with it a fifth bar to her gold star.

Her daughters Marina and Jan have also both represented New Zealand and Jan is currently on international duties in Brisbane.

In February last year, the family team won the fours title at the national women's championships in Dunedin.

It was Khan's fifth title in the fours to add to four singles and two pairs titles, the third title for both Jan and Marina Khan and the second for adopted daughter Mina Paul.

However, the Khan family team missed out on their third consecutive fours title at this year's competition in Tauranga, when they crashed in the first round of post-section play to former winners Putaruru.

Khan was born in Matata in the eastern Bay of Plenty in July, 1938 to Mary and Jim King, a Yugoslavian gum digger who changed his name from Marijn Hrspich.

Khan played a lot of sports as a girl.

She met Ron Khan after she left school and was working in Rotorua. They married when she was 16.

They had seven children, six of them girls, before they separated.

Khan did not pick up a bowl until she was 38.

The "girls" from Matamata Bowling Club were sharing a table with her at golf one day and talked her into a roll-up.

Khan proved a natural. Within nine years, she was a New Zealand representative.

Matamata Bowling Club is a breeding ground for top bowlers. Jenny Simpson, Adrienne Lambert, Rhoda Ryan, Elsie Wilkie and Betty Fitzell have all won national titles.

With her trademark tiger tattoo for good luck and a Maori doll called Pania, Khan was the terror of greens the world over.

But despite a reputation as "a scrapper" on the green, whanau (family) was always the most important thing to her.

The nation cried with her when she got the news that her grandson, Brad, had died in a freak accident just as the final of the 1990 Commonwealth Games got under way.

Her family kept the news from her until after the match, and Khan sobbed as a silver medal was placed around her neck.

She loved to play alongside her daughters -- even when they beat her.

As a team they were almost unbeatable.

"We just encouraged each other all the time," Khan said following the Khan family's national four title last year.

"I told our girls not to worry about anybody else and just to do our own thing on the green."

She said she always drew inspiration from her family.

When her half-brother, Rangi Mason, died just before last Christmas, she said she felt his spirit with her at the United Bowling Club's women's invitation singles in Nelson, which she won.

"I called on all my whanau, but particularly them now they've gone. It always gives me renewed strength," she said at the time.

She said she wanted to win for them and the rest of her family sitting greenside.

In response to criticisms that she did not "put enough back into bowls", Khan said administration was not her strength.

"I'd be hopeless doing a lot of those sorts of things. Put me on the bowling green, though, and I'm fine....

"I just ignore them and do my talking on the green."

Khan, who was educated at Matata Convent, was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1990, the same year she was also named New Zealand Sports Personality of the Year.

She is survived by her eight children, Ronald, Teresa, Jan, Vicky, Sharon, Monica, Marina and Mina, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Khan was to have been guest of honour at the Maori Sports Awards in Auckland next Saturday.

Her death would not stop her daughters from competing at this years national fours in Christchurch on Boxing Day, they said today.

"It's very tragic," Mina Paul said today from Rotorua. "We were all getting ready to go down to Christchurch for the nationals, we're definitely going down, we have got a goal to play for now," Paul said.

"She was fine, I don't think she had any history of heart complaints."

She had moved to Ngongotaha to live earlier this year and was looking forward to a full season of bowls with the club.

"She had just come back from playing an invitation tournament with Jan in Invercargill and was getting ready to play with Jan in the Beckenham pairs over new year."

Bowls NZ chief executive Kerry Clark said Khan was "an irreplaceable icon".

"People who know nothing about bowls have heard of Millie Khan, not just in New Zealand but around the world," he said in a statement.

"Her attitude to life and to sport, and to all those around her, was always wonderful. Her warmth and sense of humour, and a seemingly imperturbable attitude, belied a hugely competitive spirit.

"She was always the first to complement an opponent on a good bowl played -- usually to be followed by a better one herself!"

He said Khan "always gave freely and generously of her time and knowledge" to new players of all ages, including many juniors and schoolchildren.

She was also the patron of the NZ Blind Lawn Bowls Association.

"Bowls has lost a true ambassador, and a lovely lady. Queen of the Greens was a term applied throughout her career, not inappropriately.

"At a time when too many sports people are described as great, Millie Khan was, truly, great."


- Newstalk ZB, Daily Post (Rotorua), NZPA