Triple former New Zealand champion distance runner Beverley Shingles is the latest inductee into the Wanganui Sports Hall of Fame.
The 74-year-old, who was the first woman in the country to win premier national titles in three different distance running disciplines during the height of her powers, was the soleinductee into the Hall of Fame at last night's Ray White Wanganui Sports Awards dinner at the racecourse.
She won NZ titles on the track (1500m in 1971), in cross-country (1972) and in the marathon (1980) and becomes the third runner from the sport of athletics to be named in the Hall of Fame, which was inaugurated in 2008 and now comprises 20 individuals and two family groups.
In addition to her national titles, Shingles represented New Zealand in all three distance running disciplines, winning a silver medal in the women's team event at the 1971 world cross-country championships in Spain.
She was in the winning team at the 1982 London Marathon, won the 1979 20th Century Fox Los Angeles international women's marathon in 1979, and in 1976 smashed the NZ women's marathon record by more than half an hour.
The Wanganui District Council-administered selection panel this year comprised WDC councillor and chairperson Sue Westwood, former Sport Wanganui chairperson Christine Jones, Wanganui Iwi representative Ken Mair, Dunedin-based NZ Hall of Fame director Ron Palenski, former Wanganui Chronicle sports editor John Phillips, WDC sport and recreation adviser Keith Smith and Wanganui businessman and multi-sport event organiser Mark Stoneman.
If a nominee misses selection the year they are nominated, their name stays in the consideration category for future years.
There are 19 people in this category including the late Darcy McGonagle (NZ pole vault champion) and Richard Jarrett (athletics, boxing, gymnastics trainer), who were both nominated this year.
