The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 37

Pages 37-44 Recreation The Citizen, Ottawa, Thursday, September 6, 1984, Page 37t Holloway to retire from canoeing competition Eddie MacCabe Citizen sports editor if LuI Iff nrVs D'Arcy and poet E.W. Smith also honored Holloway and Thorn in song and verse. "I can't tell you how thrilling it is to get the key to the city," Thorn said as the families of both athletes watched. "It's one of the greatest honors. "And to have a venue or park land named after me that's superb.

What can I say?" Holloway, who competed in the 1976 and 1984 Summer and 1976 Winter Olympics and was selected flagbearer for the 1980 stay-at-home team, was filled with happiness, too. "It's very satisfying," she said, "to receive recognition from the city. The words are so cliche but they express it so well. It's really nice to have my friends here to share this moment because their support has made it possible." Since winning the silver medal in kayak tandem and the bronze in K-4, Holloway has kept a low profile. She stayed with a friend in Newport Beach, for two weeks of reflection and then attended the Canadian canoe championships in Dartmouth.

(Morrla to meet Pope, page 42) 1 fi By Martin Cleary Citizen staff writer Veteran kayaker Sue Holloway, knowing she reached the pinnacle of her career at the 1984 Summer Olympics, has retired from international racing a fulfilled athlete. Holloway, sporting silver and bronze medals around her neck, said at a civic reception Wednesday it was time to move ahead and find a job. "I will be involved in some capacity with canoeing, but probably not as a competitor," said Holloway, the first Olympic medallist in the Rideau Canoe Club's 82-year history. "I think that (Olympics) was it. "I was confident that was my best performance.

1 worked hard for 12 years, but for the the past VA years 1 have dedicated myself to training to the maximum. I couldn't train harder. "I wouldn't feel good about retiring until I had given 100 per cent and done my very best. I felt it (Olympics) was my very best and I'd rather go out doing my best." Ottawa Mayor Marion Dewar rewarded both Holloway and Olympic shooting gold medallist Linda Thorn with gold keys to the city as well as a perpetual honor. Dewar announced "a city facility or 1 c- Marilyn Mlkkelsen, Citizen Sue Holloway, left, and Linda Thorn share the applause members and about 200 spectators in Whitton Hall.

Gold medallist Alwyn Morris of Caughnawaga, and Olympic team member Mark Holmes of Ottawa also were introduced to warm applause. About 400 guests attend the reception. Ottawa policeman-singer Dominic park land" will be named after each athlete. A list of existing properties has been compiled and the name changes will be announced after Dewar has consulted with respective community groups. Thorn and Holloway received a standing ovation from the council Expos make ex-Yankee new JQ 'i By Bob Elliott Citizen staff writer MONTREAL Call it Canadian content.

Call it a small bit of rearranging the front office furniture. Don't call it a drastic change. The Montreal Expos appointed Murray Cook, 43, the fourth general manager in the history of the club here Wednesday. John McHale had been serving double duty as president and general manager since the end of the 1978 season. Cook was born in Sackville, N.B., but his family moved to Florida when he was 13.

He played three seasons and worked 18 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization before joining New York Yankees in Jan. 24, 1983. He resigned two weeks ago. "My main priority is finding a manager for next season," said Cook. "I saw the team a bit in spring training and I think the talent is here.

There is a good nucleus. That's not sticking my head in the sand nor is it the company line. "No team has the depth to have their best pitcher (Steve Rogers) and their best position player (Andre Dawson) at less than 100 per cent for the whole season. Look at Detroit and Toronto 1 think they've each had one man on the disabled list all season." Cook will be making a visit to Indianapolis for the American Association playoffs to see Expo farmhands. "I'll watch our players this final month, see our triple A team and then we'll sit down and evaluate," said Cook.

McHale was asked how much power Cook would hold. "He'll hold as much power as any general manager," said McHale. "If Murray Cook decides he wants to trade Gary Carter, Charles Bronfman (principal owner) will be involved, Hugh Halward (board member) will be involved. We'll be consulted." Said Cook: "I'm a team man." Cook joined the Yankees as director of player development. In June of 1983 he was named general manager.

Being general manager for Yankee owner George Steinbren-ner is something akin to going the the election booth in Leningrad. But Cook gained freedom, some power and made moves: He traded Jerry Mumphrey to Houston for former Pirate outfielder Omar Moreno. Mumphrey is an all-star with the Astros. Moreno plays three times a week in the crowded Yankee outfield. The trade upset then manager Billy Martin.

At the winter meetings in Nashville, Cook traded shortstop Tim Foli for pitcher Kurt Kaufman. Kaufman won't win the Cy Young award this year, but shortstop was an overcrowded position. Once he arrived in New York, Foli announced California had agreed to an expensive extension of his contract. Yankees took the matter to an arbitrator. And lost.

Cook traded first baseman Steve Balboni to Kansas City for reliever Mike Armstrong. Call it the American League's version of the Fred Breining trade. Balboni won't earn Most Valuable Player honors hitting home runs for the Royals, but Armstrong has missed over half the year with a sore elbow. "We knew he had an elbow problem," said Cook. "We had our doctors look at it.

We didn't think it was serious." Cook did sign free agent Joe Cowley, who was 9-7 at Richmond with a 4.04 earned run average. He is 5-0 as a starter, 6-1 over-all with the Yankees. Steinbrenner was angry in January when pitcher Tim Belcher, the No. 1 draft choice in the United States, was grabbed from the Yankee roster by the Oakland A's. Belcher was not among the 26 players protected, so Oakland could take him as compensation (GM, page 39) Boycott aside, system worked There is a rich, metallic glow in the wash of the Los Angeles Olympics and the euphoria is heightened because Canadian athletes fared better than anyone had anticipated.

People in the amateur sports movement in Canada are nicely aware of the fact that the boycott by Eastern-Bloc nations enhanced the Canadian harvest. Abby Hoffman, director general of Sport Canada, said: "We know some fields were weakened by the boycott but we're still happy because of the competitiveness of Canadian athletes. Of, say, 70 of our entries who are A-card people, 36 ended in the medals or were ranked in the top eight among individuals or the top four among teams. So the number of people we had who were world-ranked before the Games, came through." And she didn't say it, but could have added, "for the first time." "The percentage of athletes who performed at or above their personal bests was very high," she said, "and the interest and enthusiasm of the general public since we got back is a real shot in the arm for Canadian sport. "It is really only since 1974 that we have had good programs in place.

That was the beginning of Canada's serious effort and it has taken 10 years to see the benefits." Hoffman competed in the 1964 Games, again in '68, again in '72 and she was Canada's flagbearer in the Montreal Games: "Preparing to go to Munich in 1972," she said, "I was a full-time athlete for the last eight months and was trying to get by on SI, 800 a year. I had an academic scholarship from the Canada Council or I wouldn't have been able to live. Our athletes are much better supported now." Canada has about 750 carded athletes and we wondered about the system being used to support athletic bums, people who enjoy what they're doing and exist with just middling success and with piddling potential. "I don't think we have any who are ripping off the system," she said. "With what they're required to do, for $5,000 or $6,000 a year it wouldn't be worth it." But Hoffman, and others in the movement, know that we had athletes on the team in Los Angeles who shouldn't have been there, and athletes left home who should have been there.

The Canadian Olympic Association eased the qualifying criteria after the Soviet-led boycott was announced but still there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth. "And if they had stuck to their original standards, which were really restrictive, there would have been Holy War," Hoffman said. The COA sets the qualifying criteria according to world standards to avoid hauling huge numbers of athletes to competitions around the world where they have no chance of finishing even in the first half. That seems to be a reasonable enough stance and all the sports bodies voted in favor of the criteria. Later, when it was precisely implemented, the bleating began.

People in the system, like Hoffman, without quarrelling with the table of standards, believe there is room and justification for some flexibility. "I think we should have more consideration in individual cases talented athletes with potential pre-elite competitors we might say, and go over them case by case and sport by sport." She would like to see, too, "more credibility attached to the selections made by national team coaches. Currie Chapman, who coached the women's ski team, who had to beg to put some of the women on the team." But most of the systems required for success are in place. After the Games, the feds greased the bandwagon wheels by promising more money, about $38 million more, geared to the Summer Games in Korea and the Winter Games in Calgary. In the past two decades, a huge bureaucracy has been built, layer by layer, around sports and inevitably, there is fierce politicking and empire building and protecting one's turf.

The government has changed sports ministers like sweat socks five in the past 20 months. Some have been sound people and some have been crashing disasters and in that atmosphere, the bureaucracy, like Topsy, "just entirely under Liberal administrations. In the past, the legions in the business of amateur sports (and on the government payroll) have hi.d reason to view elections with some trepidation. Some may have cause to sweat this time around too and the Tories have have sounded the "hear ye's" to senior mandarins of Grit stripe. But by and large, the programs have been productive and in the precious metal wake of Los Angeles, it would be a foolish politician indeed who moved in like a heavy mover and shaker, determined to "make a mark." Boycott notwithstanding, the success in L.A.

has provided the whop- Siing sports administration with more contort than ever before. It is evident that the main thrust is in place and if there is some tidying up to do in the interest of "lean and management, a wise and careful minister should handle it without creating any big waves. Because the next election might be four years down the road, coincident again with the Olympics, when there is political hay to be made. lLr r- m. 1 VTsSV I I 19 -X -4 1 Li CP photo New GM Murray Cook, left, accepts congratulations from Jim Fanning Bassett upsets Mandlikova to earn match with Lloyd NEW YORK (CP) Carling Bassett may Among the men, No.

15 Pat Cash of Aus ill I i.ii iBM L-3T i tralia shocked fourth-seeded Mats Wilander of Sweden 7-6, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 while second-rated Ivan Lendl of Czechoslovakia advanced easily 6-4, 6-4, 6-1 against No. 5 Andres Gomez of Ecuador. The men's quarter-finals continued today with top-seeded John McEnroe meeting fellow American Gene Mayer and second-seeded Jimmy Connors of the U.S., taking on John Lloyd of Britain. "I like playing Chris because we get into a groove," said Bassett, her voice raspy from laryngitis. "She plays the same game I do, and you always feel well when you play her.

"And she was the turning point in my career, the match that made me, gave me all those memories." Bassett was referring to a 1983 Florida tournament final in which she came within seven points of victory. Bassett said her improved serving and volleying was the major reason why she reached her first semifinal in a Grand Slam event. "My baseline game was so horrendous that I just started hitting balls at the net," she said of her practice time while away from tournament play. "And I got my timing and I just started serving and volleying." Of Wednesday's contest she said: "It's hard to know if it's one of the best matches I've played because Hana doesn't give you a groove. She was guessing a lot because I was passing her quite handily." have been the one recovering from a bout of mononucleosis, but it was Hana Mandlikova who received the kiss of death at the United States Open tennis championships Wednesday.

The 16-year-old Toronto native upended the third-seeded Czechoslovakian 6-4, 6-3 in quarter-final action to become the first Canadian ever to advance to the U.S. Open semifinals. This is Bassctt's first tournament since Wimbledon because of the mononucleosis. She still has laryngitis and says she can't sleep because her throat itches. In Mandlikova's view, Bassett was able to overcome these obstacles because her father is so wealthy she doesn't feel any pressure to win.

Bassett, the No, 14 seed, now will face second-ranked Chris Evert Lloyd of the U.S., for the fifth time in her brief career in the final four Friday. Lloyd, a six-time U.S. Open champion, defeated West German Sylvia Ha-nika 6-2, 6-3 to advance to the semis here for the 14th consecutive year. "Chris is special for me," said Bassett, who has never won in the four previous matches against her including the French Open 3uarter-finals earlier this year. "God, I hope I on't play badly against her." In another upset, 1 3 th-rated Wendy Turnbull of Australia surprised No.4 seed Pam Shriver of the U.S., 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 and will Elay top-seeded Martina Navratilova of the I.S., who dumped Czechoslovakian Helena Sukova 6-3, 6-3 to advance.

i AP photo Carling Bassett returns shot to Hana Mandlikova I 1 I ll I.