KEY POINTS:
How to decide who should be New Zealand's flagbearer at Friday night's Olympic opening ceremony?
What are the qualities that should be taken into account?
Those questions will have been exercising the mind of the team's chef de mission Dave Currie in recent days. Traditionally the selection of who should fulfil one of the Olympic Games' most prestigious jobs falls to the team boss. And traditionally it is a closely guarded secret.
At Athens four years ago, discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina got the job. As a former world champion and Commonwealth gold medallist in 2002, she fitted one of the standard prerequisites, that of being a top-level international performer.
The four to march first into the stadium before Faumuina were also strong choices for the same reasons - Ian Ferguson (who carried the flag in 1988), Mark Todd (1992), Barbara Kendall (1996) and Blyth Tait (2000) had all been Olympic gold medallists four years beforehand.
The Beijing group has a few options for Currie to consider.
Rowers Mahe Drysdale, single scull world champion for the last three years, and Rob Waddell, the 2000 gold medallist in the same event, and returning after seven years away with Team New Zealand, would be prime candidates, but both are in their opening heats the following day.
If Currie wanted to be a bit different, he could twist Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell's arms, which would provide a first - twins and defending Olympic champions doing the honours. But again, they race the next day.
Triathlete Bevan Docherty won silver in Athens. He must be in the frame, even though he is training on an island off the coast of Korea.
And what of world shot put champion Valerie Vili or Commonwealth Games 1500m champion Nick Willis?
Vili is not due in Beijing until next week and Willis is in Hong Kong.
For a real departure, Currie could consider pistol shooter Yang Wang, a former Chinese national squad member returning to the country of his birth for his first Olympics.
Fancy a bet? Put a dollar or two on Docherty making a flying visit to Beijing on Friday.
