David Leggat: Put your money on Ulmer as the team's flagbearer

COMMENT

Okay, it's not quite up there with "Who Shot JFK" or the Mehrtens-Spencer argument.

But the identity of the New Zealand team flagbearer at the Games opening ceremony always provokes a degree of speculation.

We're not talking about a collective holding of breaths here, more a small ripple of anticipation.

And this time it is no different.

The choice of who carries the flag at Olympic or Commonwealth Games has traditionally been the one decision the team's chef de mission is left to make alone.

It is always a closely guarded secret. This time, New Zealand's head honcho, Dave Currie, has provided an indication of his thinking.

So, with the Currie guidelines in place, we can apply the following criteria:

* The person will have performed, at the least, creditably at a previous Olympics.

* The person will be a reasonably high achiever on the international stage.

* And he or she will be someone with standing as a person, a leader "who represents all the values we see as important".

The collective "we" being the team and the nation.

Add in that it's standard procedure once you've done it there's no second chance, then start whittling down the options.

Out go world champions Ben Fouhy (canoeing) and twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell (rowing), who are at their first Olympics.

The Evers-Swindells would have had the advantage of novelty. No one else could match twins at the head of their team marching into the Olympic Stadium on Saturday morning (NZ time).

Another factor against them is they hit the water the morning after the ceremony in their heats and none of the New Zealanders in action on the first two days is expected to march.

Also red-flagged are eventing maestro Blyth Tait and the only New Zealand woman to win medals at three successive Olympics, boardsailor Barbara Kendall, who did the job in 2000 and 1996 respectively.

There are a handful of others who might have had some of the credentials in their favour. Currie coyly conceded he had got down to "five or six" before settling on his choice.

So here, with punter's hat on and accompanying drum roll, is your shortlist: cyclist Sarah Ulmer, discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina and equestrian Andrew Nicholson.

The only man on our list, Nicholson is attending his fifth Olympics, dating back to Los Angeles in 1984 and has an excellent international record as a three-day-eventer.

Faumuina, world champion seven years ago, twice Commonwealth champion, would have her backers.

And Ulmer, 3000m individual pursuit world recordholder and champion, was fourth in Sydney in 2000 by a fingernail, is at her third Olympics and has a cluster of Commonwealth medals.

She was flagbearer at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games. But that's no impediment. These are the Olympics after all.

The identity of the chosen one will be revealed at the New Zealand team's official pre-Games function early tomorrow.

A punter's pick? Ulmer.