New Zealand at the Olympics

New Zealand at the Olympic Games

Flag of New Zealand
IOC code  NZL
NOC New Zealand Olympic Committee
Websitewww.olympic.org.nz
Olympic history
Summer Games

*with Australia as Australasia
Winter Games
The New Zealand rowing team at the 1932 Summer Olympics

The first person from New Zealand to perform at the Olympic Games was Victor Lindberg who competed for the Osborne Swimming Club of Great Britain which won the Water Polo at the 1900 Summer Olympics. Officially New Zealand has sent athletes to compete in every Summer Olympic Games since 1908. For its first two Games, in 1908 and 1912, New Zealand competed with Australia in a combined Australasia team. New Zealand first sent an independent team in 1920.

New Zealand's participation in the 1976 Games was controversial, and led to a boycott of the Games by most African countries, who protested against sporting contacts between the All Blacks and apartheid South Africa.

New Zealand has also participated in most Winter Olympic Games since 1952, missing only the 1956 and 1964 Games. In 1988 the team included Bobsleighers; the first entry in a winter sport other than Alpine Skiing.

New Zealand athletes have won a total of 103 medals at the Summer Games. The most successful sport have been athletics with 21 medals in total and 10 gold medals, with rowing following closely behind, also with 21 medals in total but only 9 gold medals. New Zealand has won a single medal at the Winter Games; the silver medal won by Annelise Coberger in alpine skiing at the 1992 Winter Olympics was the first medal won at the Winter Games by a Southern Hemisphere nation.

The 100 medals won by New Zealand put New Zealand at Number 32 on the all-time Olympic Games medal table for total number of medals and Number 27 when weighted by medal type.

National Olympic Committee

The New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) is the National Olympic Committee for New Zealand. The NZOC was founded in 1911, and recognized by the IOC in 1919.

Participation

Being located in the remote South Pacific, New Zealanders needed to endure long sea voyages to attend the early Olympics. It wasn’t until the VII Olympiad in 1920 that New Zealand sent its first team, comprising two runners, a rower, and a 15-year-old girl swimmer. Prior to that however, three New Zealanders had won medals competing for Australasian teams in 1908 and 1912. Since the advent of international jet air travel in the 1950s, and the greater number of Olympic sports, the size of New Zealand Olympic teams has increased substantially.

New Zealand, as with other Southern Hemisphere countries, has had the disadvantage of needing to peak to compete in summer sports which are held during their winter months. Only two Olympics have ever been held in the Southern Hemisphere, the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, with the upcoming 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro being the third to be held in the Southern Hemisphere.

As a temperate country New Zealand does not generally experience the severe winters, especially to low levels, common in many countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Consequently, a smaller proportion of New Zealanders experience winter sports (and learn to ski or skate) than the residents of some regions in the Northern Hemisphere. The same applies to many other Southern Hemisphere countries. New Zealand did not send their first Winter Olympic team until 1952. In 1992, Annelise Coberger of New Zealand became the first person from the Southern Hemisphere to win a medal at the Winter Olympics when she won silver in the slalom at Albertville in France.

After the 2014 Winter Olympics, 1245 competitors have represented New Zealand at the Olympic Games. Harry Kerr is considered the first Kiwi Olympian and Adrian Blincoe the 1000th.[1] As at 11 June 2009, of the 1111 Olympians to that date, 114 were deceased and the whereabouts of 21 were unknown.[1] By 25 June 2009, only 9 Olympians had not been located.[2] There are no living Kiwi Olympians from before the 1948 Olympics in London.[1]

Medal tables

Medals by Summer Games

      Olympic Games where New Zealand athletes competed as part of the Australasian team

Games Gold Silver Bronze Total
1908 London 0 0 1 1
1912 Stockholm 1 0 1 2
1920 Antwerp 0 0 1 1
1924 Paris 0 0 1 1
1928 Amsterdam 1 0 0 1
1932 Los Angeles 0 1 0 1
1936 Berlin 1 0 0 1
1948 London 0 0 0 0
1952 Helsinki 1 0 2 3
1956 Melbourne/Stockholm 2 0 0 2
1960 Rome 2 0 1 3
1964 Tokyo 3 0 2 5
1968 Mexico City 1 0 2 3
1972 Munich 1 1 1 3
1976 Montreal 2 1 1 4
1980 Moscow 0 0 0 0
1984 Los Angeles 8 1 2 11
1988 Seoul 3 2 8 13
1992 Barcelona 1 4 5 10
1996 Atlanta 3 2 1 6
2000 Sydney 1 0 3 4
2004 Athens 3 2 0 5
2008 Beijing 3 2 4 9
2012 London 6 2 5 13
Total 42 18 39 99
Total including medals as part of Australasian team 43 18 41 102

Medals by Winter Games

Games Gold Silver Bronze Total
1952 Oslo 0 0 0 0
1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo did not participate
1960 Squaw Valley 0 0 0 0
1964 Innsbruck did not participate
1968 Grenoble 0 0 0 0
1972 Sapporo 0 0 0 0
1976 Innsbruck 0 0 0 0
1980 Lake Placid 0 0 0 0
1984 Sarajevo 0 0 0 0
1988 Calgary 0 0 0 0
1992 Albertville 0 1 0 1
1994 Lillehammer 0 0 0 0
1998 Nagano 0 0 0 0
2002 Salt Lake City 0 0 0 0
2006 Turin 0 0 0 0
2010 Vancouver 0 0 0 0
2014 Sochi 0 0 0 0
Total 0 1 0 1

Medals by sport

Sport Gold Silver Bronze Total
Athletics 10 2 8 20
Rowing 9 2 10 21
Sailing 8 5 5 18
Canoeing 6 2 1 9
Equestrian 3 2 5 10
Swimming 2 1 3 6
Cycling 1 2 4 7
Boxing 1 1 1 3
Triathlon 1 1 1 3
Field hockey 1 0 0 1
Alpine skiing 0 1 0 1
Shooting 0 0 1 1
Total 42 19 39 100

Medals won as part of Australasia are excluded from the above table.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Leggat, David (11 June 2009). "21 Kiwi Olympians fail to register". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  2. ↑ New Zealand Olympic Committee: 1111 Olympians Honoured this Week

External links