Victor Lindberg

Olympic medal record
Men's Water Polo
1900 Paris Team competition

Michael Victor Alexander Lindberg (26 July 1875 – 28 April 1951)[1] was a Fijian-born New Zealander who, according to some sources,[2] competed in water polo at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. Poor record keeping is to blame, but also the fact that many of the records that were kept had his name misspelled.[3]

Lindberg was born in Fiji to Swedish and Irish parents who moved to New Zealand when he was young. He arrived in London shortly before the 1900 Olympic Games and joined the Osborne Swimming Club which went on to win the Gold medal. He is not included in the official list of the team (which includes one member who died during the Second Boer War before the Games)[2] but subsequent research concludes that he did compete and that he should be considered a New Zealander.[2] On this basis he is the first New Zealander to have competed at the Olympic Games and the first New Zealand Olympic champion. His descendants were presented with a medal by the president of the New Zealand Olympic Committee, Mike Stanley, in 2014.[3][4]

References

  1. ↑ Sport-reference.com: Victor Lindberg
  2. 1 2 3 Sports-reference.com: Water Polo at the 1900 Paris Summer Games
  3. 1 2 "Original NZ Olympian celebrated". The Northland Age. 9 October 2014. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
  4. ↑ Munro, Bruce (2 August 2016). "A nation strikes gold". Otago Daily Times. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
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