More Olympic gold medals and a World Cup win in a major code are the aims of a tough new approach to picking winners in sport. Andrew Laxon finds out how the Government wants to raise the bar even further.
The country's top Olympic sports will come under pressure next year to prove they still deserve the lion's share of taxpayer funding.
Swimming, in particular, is expected to face a challenge from kayaking.
Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc) chooses six codes - currently cycling, rowing, yachting, swimming, athletics and
triathlon - as those most likely to succeed at the London Olympics in 2012.
The sports get $48 million from taxpayers over the four-year Olympic cycle. Top athletes and coaches can also get grants of up to $60,000 a year for world champions in an Olympic discipline, while rugby, cricket and netball are guaranteed money as potential World Cup winners.
Other sports have to apply for a smaller share of contestable funding, which was set at $4.8 million this year.
Sparc high performance manager Martin Toomey acknowledged that swimming, which gets $1.35 million this year, would be under pressure in next year's funding review.
New Zealand's swimmers missed out on medals in Beijing and failed to make any finals at last month's world championships in Rome.
"Things didn't go as well as they had wanted and we'd have liked," said Mr Toomey.
"So we need to understand why to see if there's things that are easy enough to fix or whether that's our lot moving forward - in which case you look at where you best put your money."
He was watching the progress of kayaking, which was paid $562,500 this year. It had improved considerably from two top-class performers in 2006, Ben Fouhy and Steve Ferguson, to a larger group of medal contenders.
Women's hockey has already discovered how ruthless the new system can be, with the Black Sticks dropped from $400,000 a year to nothing.
Olympic Committee president Mike Stanley said New Zealand had to look for its areas of strength.
It was hard for swimmers because so many countries had talent in depth but that also made the sport a high priority with the public.
Last year, the committee's secretary-general, Barry Maister, warned smaller sports, such as badminton and weightlifting, that they might not make it to future Olympics because athletes did not have a good enough international programme.
Mr Toomey said the public often had unrealistic expectations of New Zealand's medal chances but that could be a good thing.
"It shows Kiwis value seeing Kiwis winning on the world stage and that's really important."
