Louisa Wall: Passion, pride, and a flat backline

COMMENT

Did you get up to watch the opening ceremony of the Games? Me too! How this will affect my ability to stay awake to watch the All Blacks is something a few short or long blacks will cure (I hope).

That is the plan anyway, and a critique of the flat backline may be in order pre-game to keep me focused on my supporter's role. For the flat backline to work you need forward momentum and a quick delivery to a running first five who creates space and time for those outside. The rationale is to play to our strengths - our back three who can finish if opportunities are created. We also need quick hands to get the ball wide, and for this to function in a seamless manner, control of set phases (including kick-offs) is vital.

So, are the forwards good enough? It is interesting to note selection changes could happen elsewhere, like halfback, but never have, so the Carlos Spencer debate lives another day.

The Games have begun and what a spectacle we are in for. What are our expectations? Minister for Sport and Recreation Trevor Mallard is hopeful of seeing some great results, but the investment strategy via Sport and Recreation New Zealand's performance-enhancement grants for our top athletes is expected to bear fruit at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 and the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

I know the team will perform to its potential and win a few medals, which will warm our hearts no end. It is their participation in peripheral events that engenders a sense of pride and responsibility to perform for our country that I am conscious of; events such as their attendance at the Athens Memorial in Phaleron in honour of 1932 Olympian George Cooke and 290 other New Zealanders who fought the Germans in World War II and sacrificed their lives for our enduring freedom.

The girls will shine, I am picking. Beatrice Faumuina, a tri-Games representative who capped her Games preparation with a stylish win in Poland, throwing 63.20m, is the chosen flag-bearer. What a wonderful honour! Queen Beatrice has tasted previous success in Athens, winning the world discus title in 1997, and this could be her Games to show her true potential in the ultimate competition.

Sarah Ulmer is on track, having set a world record in the May world championships in the individual pursuit, and as a tri-Games participant has a wealth of experience to claim her first Olympic medal.

And won't we all be singing the anthem if she wins! The Evers-Swindell sisters are absolute legends, and in spite of their lack of experience in Olympic competition (this is their first Games) are destined for glory given their success winning back to back world titles at Seville in 2002 and Milan in 2003.

Barbara Kendall is at her fourth Games and, given her gold, silver and bronze in that order to date, is due another gold by that calculation. Mothers certainly can do anything.

Valerie Adams is a youngster with so much talent that an experience like this (given this is her first Games) could literally catapult her into a throw of a lifetime and medal contention. Then there is Paralympian Jayne Craike, who won gold in the dressage in Sydney and who, in spite of not taking her mount Showfield Sunrise, has the passion and belief to dig in and just do it.

We will have much to celebrate. The passion, pride and sense of fairness we have as New Zealanders will continue to outweigh the seduction of drug-taking. Long may this ethos reign.

The ability of sport to unify us is testament to the meaning of the Olympic Games. The Olympics encourage balanced development of people including their cultural, intellectual, physical, ethical and spiritual aspects, enabling the creation of holistic communities.

So the value of such an event, given the reality of global conflict and the preoccupation with terrorism, provides a timely and inclusive means to bring the peoples of the world together in peace.

May the best women win!