KEY POINTS:
It's an apples vs pears argument. How do you compare the merits of great sporting moments?
How can a coherent argument be put to say an Olympic athletic gold-medal performance is superior to winning a golf major?
Or that winning one of motor racing's biggest titles is better
than 2000m of supremely co-ordinated rowing to win a world championship?
Impossible. It is all in the mind of the individual and his or her personal preferences.
Some years ago one of New Zealand's best-known athletes - in the wide sense of the word - sat on the Halberg Awards selection panel.
Among the first words out of this person's mouth were that there was no way All Blacks or cricketers were getting a look-in for the finalists list.
That was more a case of personal bias than preference, but it is a subjective business, this choosing who sits where in the pecking order.
Scott Dixon's outstanding win in the Indianapolis 500 this week resurrected the old debate. In his case, it was more narrow: did Dixon's performance surpass Denny Hulme's Formula One world championship-winning effort of 1967?
So how about New Zealand's 15 finest sports moments? For a start, the only pre-World War II athlete to make this list is Jack Lovelock.
All due respect to Ted Morgan, the Invincibles and Anthony Wilding, but it is hard enough to make valid judgments in the televisual age as it is without having to rely solely on words and imagination. Lovelock's feats are well documented and his greatest race has been screened often enough to form opinions on its merits.
And what qualities do we look for?
* They must be winners. They are remembered for being champions. The one exception in this list is Jonah Lomu, who was a winner, even if his team, on the occasion for which he is in this list, were not.
* The impact they had. Why do some momentous occasions have more of it than others of similar athletic merit?
* The emotional aspect does count. You will often hear people divorce all peripheral elements from the pure quality of performance. Not in this list. It does matter because in many cases that played a critical role in why we remember it, never better demonstrated than at Munich in 1972.
* The "great" aspect. It is sport's most overused word but not on this occasion. These performances were undeniably of that order.
* And finally they must leave you with the feeling of "were you there when . . ?" or, more satisfyingly, "I was there when ... "
Among the great moments which missed the cut? There are many.
Sir Murray Halberg's terrific 5000m gold at Rome in 1960; Nathan Astle's staggering 222 against England at Jade Stadium, the fastest test double century by a mile at the time; clinching the first, and most famous rugby series win over South Africa at Eden Park in 1956; Hamish Carter and Bevan Docherty's 1-2 triathlon finish in Athens; Team New Zealand's America's Cup triumph in San Diego in 1995.
And we could go on, and on ...
Fifteen to savour:
1. Peter Snell
For his 800m-1500m Olympic golden double at Tokyo in 1964. He was a colossus, at his prime. New Zealand's athlete of the past century. Rightly so.
2. Danyon Loader
For his 200-400m Olympic double gold at Atlanta in 1996. New Zealand's first Olympic swimming golds. The day before the 400m, I asked his coach Duncan Laing if he thought a second gold was within reach. He harrumphed for a few moments and peered off into the distance. Then he shot a look back. "But I'll tell you what, if he's close when they turn for home no one will touch him."
3. John Walker
On August 12, 1975, Walker clocked 3min 49.4sec for a mile in Gothenburg, Sweden. It was the first time the distance had been cut out in less than 3min 50sec and the record lasted almost four years. It may not have had the same resonance as Roger Bannister's historic first sub-4min mile 21 years earlier but was every bit as great.
4. Sarah Ulmer
You win an Olympic gold in a world record time. Talk about timing, synchonicity of body and mind. The 3000m individual pursuit in Athens in 2004, in a world best 3min 24.537s was it for Ulmer. Brilliant.
5. Jack Lovelock
Of the three New Zealanders to hold the world mile record - Snell and Walker being the others - only Lovelock held the world 1500m record as well. He did it in the Olympic final at Berlin in 1936, clocking 3min 47.8s. It was "the most perfectly executed race of my career" Lovelock wrote. The perfect race, at the perfect moment. You can't do better than that.
6. Munich Rowing 8
The gold medal winners at the Feldmoching course in 1972 beat the favoured East Germans. They became the first New Zealand Olympians to hear 'God Defend New Zealand' instead of 'God Save The Queen'. Cue brawny blokes in black with glistening eyes. Emotion? Yes please.
7. Ian Ferguson
Ferguson was the leader of the New Zealand canoeing pack which grabbed the Los Angeles regatta of 1984 by the neck and dominated it. He won three golds, the only New Zealand athlete to manage that feat in a single Games.
8. Yvette Williams
New Zealand's first woman Olympic champion - which lasted 52 years - for the long jump at Helsinki in 1952. She was one false jump away from disqualification in the qualifying phase before soaring to glory with an Olympic record 6.24m, a couple of centimetres shy of the world mark. These were the days, or nights, huddled round the wireless. The first golden girl of New Zealand sport.
9. Bob Charles
Won the British Open in 1963, winning a 36-hole playoff with American Phil Rodgers at Royal Lytham St Annes. The first New Zealander to win a major, and it took 42 years for another to repeat the feat. The trailblazer and best putter in the world, left or righthanded, for years.
10. Michael Campbell
Won the US Open in 2005. Has had far more downs than ups since. His ranking is in the 300s but no matter what lies ahead, he'll always have that week at Pinehurst No 2.
11. Denny Hulme
Won the Formula One championship in 1967, the first - and only - New Zealander to do so. Won two of the 10 races, and got points in eight of them for the Brabham team. These were the days of easily-breakable cars and death, on a fairly regular basis. So cojones and buckets of skill were required.
12. Men's Hockey Gold
At Montreal in 1976, New Zealand won the final, beating Australia 1-0. Tony Ineson got the goal, keeper Trevor Manning got a broken kneecap in the frenetic finale. Defiant to the end, New Zealand's win was a classic case of a group of uncommonly talented hockey players at their collective peak.
13. Jonah Lomu
Lomu bestrode the 1995 World Cup. His four-try semifinal demolition of England at Cape Town gets him in here. He was a giant that day. His sheer impact gets him in here. In years to come, kids will watch film of Lomu and - unlike earlier generations who have relied on word passed down or books and imagination when the great names are discussed - will see what all the fuss was about.
14. Richard Hadlee
New Zealand's greatest cricketer reached his zenith in Brisbane in the first test in November, 1985. His nine for 52 set up perhaps the country's most emphatic test victory. Only four men have produced better figures in a test innings. It was as near bowling perfection as you'll get.
15. Mark Todd
Todd won back-to-back Olympic three-day eventing golds. He's in for 1988, when he and Charisma became the first pair since 1924 to retain the title. Named rider of the century. As he tore up the celebrated Badminton cross country course in England one day, one of England's finest jockeys, John Francome, opined to anyone listening that "this bloke could win it on a donkey".
