New Zealand at the Olympics

New Zealand first sent an independent team to the Olympics in 1920. Prior to this, at the 1908 and 1912 Summer Olympics, New Zealand and Australian athletes competed together in a combined Australasia team. New Zealand has also participated in most Winter Olympic Games since 1952, missing only the 1956 and 1964 Games.

New Zealand at the Olympic Games
IOC code	NZL
NOC	New Zealand Olympic Committee
Website	www.olympic.org.nz
Medals	Gold 46 Silver 28 Bronze 46 Total 120
Summer appearances
1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020
Winter appearances
1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022
Other related appearances
Australasia (1908 · 1912)

The New Zealand rowing team at the 1932 Summer Olympics

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

New Zealand athletes have won a total of 120 medals, with all but three won at the Summer Games. The most successful sports have been rowing and athletics with 24 medals each; sailing follows closely behind with 22 medals. New Zealand's three winter medals have come in alpine skiing in 1992 and in snowboarding and freestyle skiing in 2018. The 120 medals won by New Zealand put New Zealand at number 34 on the all-time Olympic Games medal table for total number of medals and number 26 when weighted by medal type.

Following the 2016 Summer Olympics, 1371 competitors had represented New Zealand at Olympic Games. Harry Kerr is considered[1] the first Kiwi Olympian[2] and Adrian Blincoe the 1000th.[3] As at 11 June 2009, of the 1111 Olympians to that date, 114 were deceased and the whereabouts of 21 were unknown.[3] By 25 June 2009 only 9 Olympians had not been located.[4] There are no living Kiwi Olympians from before the 1948 Olympics in London.[3]

New Zealand at the Summer Games

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.

Due to its location in the South Pacific and distance from the early Olympic host cities in Europe and North America, New Zealanders needed to endure long sea voyages to participate. New Zealand sent its first independent team to the VII Olympiad in 1920, comprising two runners, a rower, and a 15-year-old swimmer. Prior to 1920, three New Zealanders 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 three Olympics have ever been held in the Southern Hemisphere, the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

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 at the Winter Games

New Zealand has had a much smaller participation in the Winter Olympics, owing to its oceanic climate and Southern Hemisphere location requiring athletes to peak in the middle of the New Zealand summer. The nation did not assemble their first Winter Olympic team until 1952. In 1988 the team included bobsleighers; the first entry in a winter sport other than alpine skiing.

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.

In 2018, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott won New Zealand's second Winter Olympic medal in the inaugural big-air snowboarding competition in Pyeongchang, South Korea, winning bronze. Later on in the same day, 16 year old Nico Porteous won New Zealand's third Winter Olympic medal in the Men's Ski Halfpipe, also taking bronze.

Medal tables

Medals by Summer Games Games Athletes Gold Silver Bronze Total Rank 1908 London as part of  Australasia (ANZ) 1912 Stockholm 1920 Antwerp 4 0 0 1 1 22 1924 Paris 4 0 0 1 1 23 1928 Amsterdam 10 1 0 0 1 24 1932 Los Angeles 21 0 1 0 1 22 1936 Berlin 7 1 0 0 1 20 1948 London 7 0 0 0 0 – 1952 Helsinki 15 1 0 2 3 24 1956 Melbourne 53 2 0 0 2 16 1960 Rome 37 2 0 1 3 14 1964 Tokyo 64 3 0 2 5 12 1968 Mexico City 52 1 0 2 3 27 1972 Munich 89 1 1 1 3 23 1976 Montreal 80 2 1 1 4 18 1980 Moscow 4 0 0 0 0 – 1984 Los Angeles 130 8 1 2 11 8 1988 Seoul 83 3 2 8 13 18 1992 Barcelona 134 1 4 5 10 28 1996 Atlanta 97 3 2 1 6 26 2000 Sydney 151 1 0 3 4 46 2004 Athens 148 3 2 0 5 24 2008 Beijing 182 3 2 4 9 25 2012 London 184 6 2 5 13 15 2016 Rio de Janeiro 199 4 9 5 18 19 2020 Tokyo future event – 2024 Paris – 2028 Los Angeles – Total 46 27 44 117 26

Medals by Winter Games Games Athletes Gold Silver Bronze Total Rank 1952 Oslo 3 0 0 0 0 – 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo did not participate 1960 Squaw Valley 4 0 0 0 0 – 1964 Innsbruck did not participate 1968 Grenoble 6 0 0 0 0 – 1972 Sapporo 2 0 0 0 0 – 1976 Innsbruck 5 0 0 0 0 – 1980 Lake Placid 5 0 0 0 0 – 1984 Sarajevo 6 0 0 0 0 – 1988 Calgary 9 0 0 0 0 – 1992 Albertville 6 0 1 0 1 17 1994 Lillehammer 7 0 0 0 0 – 1998 Nagano 8 0 0 0 0 – 2002 Salt Lake City 10 0 0 0 0 – 2006 Turin 18 0 0 0 0 – 2010 Vancouver 16 0 0 0 0 – 2014 Sochi 15 0 0 0 0 – 2018 Pyeongchang 21 0 0 2 2 26 2022 Beijing Future event 2026 Milan–Cortina Future event Total 0 1 2 3 43

Medals by summer sport Sport Gold Silver Bronze Total Rowing 11 3 10 24 Athletics 10 3 11 24 Sailing 9 7 6 22 Canoeing 7 3 2 12 Equestrian 3 2 5 10 Swimming 2 1 3 6 Cycling 1 3 4 8 Boxing 1 1 1 3 Triathlon 1 1 1 3 Field hockey 1 0 0 1 Shooting 0 1 1 2 Golf 0 1 0 1 Rugby sevens 0 1 0 1 Totals (13 sports) 46 27 44 117

Medals by winter sport Sport Gold Silver Bronze Total Alpine skiing 0 1 0 1 Freestyle skiing 0 0 1 1 Snowboarding 0 0 1 1 Totals (3 sports) 0 1 2 3

See also

• List of flag bearers for New Zealand at the Olympics
• New Zealand Olympic medallists
• Category:Olympic competitors for New Zealand
• New Zealand Olympic Committee
• New Zealand at the Paralympics

References

1. The New Zealand Olympic Committee records all athletes chosen for the Olympics, numbered sequentially. Harry Kerr is identified as "New Zealand Olympian: 1".
2. New Zealand Olympic Committee: Harry Kerr
3. Leggat, David (11 June 2009). "21 Kiwi Olympians fail to register". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
4. New Zealand Olympic Committee: 1111 Olympians Honoured this Week

External links

• "New Zealand". International Olympic Committee.
• "New Zealand". Olympedia.com.
• "Olympic Analytics/NZL". olympanalyt.com.
• Athletics in the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand has a paragraph on each Olympiad and Empire Games to 1964
• The Olympics (NZHistory.net.nz)
• The Joseph Romanos list of our best Olympians
• Medal Count for NZ at DatabaseOlympics.com (total of 78 not complete)
• New Zealand Olympic Committee's Museum App
• "New Zealand". Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on 2020-04-17.