Olympics Athletes

New Zealand Olympic Athletes 2008

New Zealand has a proud Olympic history, with almost more golds under its belt than silver and bronze medals put together, Kiwis truly do 'go for gold' every four years at the Olympics. Find out about New Zealand's strongest Olympic sporting events, and who the top Olympic athlete picks for wins in Beijing 2008 are.

• Recreational Sports
• Sports Events

New Zealanders are proud sportspeople. Rugby is our number one game, but we pride ourselves in being overall winners in a wide range of sports, from cricket to netball to snowboarding and surfing.

Olympic Games sports are no different - we send the best of our best out in to the world every four years to compete against the world's strongest, fastest and toughest athletes, and for a small country, we don't do too badly. New Zealand has won just 33 gold medals in its Olympic history, but per capita we rank sixth in the worth for gold wins.

In the past there have been particular Olympic sporting events in which New Zealanders excel in.  The first New Zealand gold won by a single competitor was by Ted Morgan in Amsterdam 1928, in the boxing event, an event the New Zealand Olympic team has yet to strike gold in since. We have however, found several niches in other sporting events: 

Athletics Athletes
For the subsequent five Olympic Games from NZ's first single gold, we excelled primarily in only athletics sports, particularly track running. Peter Snell, perhaps New Zealand's most honoured Olympian, firmly imprinted the silver fern on the Olympics after several wins in the Rome 1960 and Toyko 1964 Games.

Rowing Athletes
In Mexico 1968, New Zealand first gained ground in a new sport, rowing, winning gold in the men's coxed fours event. The Kiwi rowing crew also won the men's eights in the succeeding Games in Munich 1972. Rowing has recently been one of our stronger events, with wins by Rob Waddell in Sydney 2000, and the Evers-Swindell twins in Athens 2004.

Water Sports Athletes
Los Angeles in 1984 saw the most gold medals brought home to date, with 8 golds slung around Kiwi competitors' necks. All but one of these gold medals was for an event on water, New Zealand excelled in kayaking, sailing, canoeing and rowing events that year. A tried Kiwi truism promotes Kiwis as water babies, and the Los Angeles Games firmly proved this maxim.

Equestrian Athletes
The same Los Angeles Games also saw the first win by Mark Todd in the individual mixed equestrian eventing. Todd will compete again in Beijing, making it his sixth Olympic Games. He paved the way for two other Kiwi medal winners - Blyth Tait and Andrew Nicholson (who has also competed in six Games), and gives hope to many more horse-riding hopefuls for Olympic success for New Zealand teams in the future.

Who is in to win in Beijing?

Sarah Walker and Marc Willers - BMX Athletes
While the BMX biking event is new to the Olympics in Beijing, Kiwi Sarah Walker already holds the number one world title, so we're likely to see this 20-year old competitor covered in gold in 2008. Likewise, Marc Willers has been previously ranked number one in the world but has since dropped to five - but Kiwi optimism still has him looking positive for a win in Beijing.

You can catch Walker and Willers in action on August 20.

Bevan Docherty and Kris Gemmel - Triathlon Athletes
New Zealand boasts a six-member multisport team in 2008, with Docherty and Gemmel picked to exceed all expectations and bring home gold medals. The triathlon is a time honoured Kiwi sport, first attempted by many Olympic hopefuls as primary school students in the Week-Bix Tryathlon.

Catch Docherty and Gemmel in the men's race on August 18.

Valerie Vili - Shotput Athlete
‘Big Val' has declared herself in the biggest and best shape of her life, making her a 'strong' hopeful for the shotput event in 2008. Vili is the reigning world champion and Commonwealth record holder, whose top throw has been recorded at 20.54m.

Vili will stand her ground in Beijing on August 16.

Hayden Roulston - Cycling Athlete
With Sarah Ulmer in retirement and standing in at Beijing as a mentor, Roulston is New Zealand's top pick for a win in cycling in 2008. In July 2008 he won the Tour des Deux-Sevres in France and has previously finished in fourth place at the World Champs.

Watch Roulston spin his wheels on August 15 and 16.

Mark Todd and Andrew Nicholson - Equestrian Athletes
Todd already has two gold medals and a bronze at home, and his teammate Nicholson a silver and a bronze, so these two are primed to stand on the podium once again.

Cross Country team and individual events will see Todd and Nicholson compete on August 11, and the team eventing jump final is on August 12.

Moss Burmester - Swimming Athlete
Danyon Loader brought significant fame to New Zealand in the pool at the Atlanta 1996 Games, winning gold in two events, but since then Kiwis haven't seen any medal winning success in any swimming events. Burmester, equipped with his LZR speed suit developed by Speedo's Aqualab and experts from NASA, is set to shoot for the stars in the 200m butterfly event in Beijing.

Don't miss Busmester's glory in the heats on August 11, finals on August 13.

Rob Waddell, Nathan Cohen, Mahe Drysdale and Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell - Rowing Athletes
That's right, we've got five gold hopefuls in rowing in 2008, and we're definitely hoping to carve up the waters with silver ferns in Beijing this year. Sydney 2000's only Kiwi gold medal went to Waddell and he is a bright spark again in Beijing, alongside triple world champion Mahe Drysdale, who is attending his third Games in 2008. Cohen will row alongside Drysdale in the double skulls, while sisters and Athens 2004 gold winners Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell are yet again hopeful candidates for gold.

Rowing events will take place everyday for six days between August 9 and 14.

Barbara Kendall - Sailing Athlete
40 year old Kendall is competing in the windsurfing event for the fifth time in Beijing, and already has all three colours of medals hanging at home from previous Games.

See Kendall in all her glory on August 18, finals on August 20.

Make sure you keep tabs on the New Zealand Olympic Medals tally each competition day throughout the Beijing Games to find out how many medals we've won. 

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Sports images from Flickr: Beijing Statue, Yachts and Cricket.