New Zealand’s Olympic stars set tough challenge for Halberg judges – Editorial

The golden trio on day 15 of the Paris Olympics (from left), Lydia Ko, Hamish Kerr and Dame Lisa Carrington. Photos / Getty Images, Photosport

EDITORIAL

For the judges of the Halberg Awards – the annual acknowledgement of sporting excellence among our people – the task is never easy. New Zealand is a proud sporting nation; we put great stock in how our nation’s representatives perform in international competition – and they perform very well.

Famously, New Zealand tends to rate highly on the per-capita medal count at the Olympics. Away from the four-yearly sporting extravaganza, we shine in many sporting codes. It’s sometimes argued that our obsession with sporting success masks a national insecurity. Sports fans won’t mind, as long as it produces champions and champion efforts.

Next year, the task of the Halbergs judges will be even more difficult.

New Zealand’s Olympians return from Paris with the most successful medal haul in our history; our heroes won 10 golds and bagged 20 medals in total.

There are obvious standouts. For many, it would be hard to look beyond Dame Lisa Carrington for the Halbergs’ top accolade. The woman they call the ”Goat in the Boat” (Greatest Of All Time) rightly won the Supreme Award in 2016, 2021 and 2023 – two of those three occasions not-coincidentally taking in the Olympics of Rio and Tokyo.

Cyclist Ellesse Andrews dominated the velodrome with an historic haul of two golds and a silver — adding to a silver medal from Tokyo. Her form was unmatched, brushing aside the British world champion while en route to winning the women’s sprint.

The phenomenal Lydia Ko (Supreme Award winner in 2013) added another singular achievement to her catalogue of excellence. Her gold made her the first golfer to complete a set of all medals (she took silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo), and also secured her place in the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Hamish Kerr soared for his glory. Track and field golds are among sport’s greatest prizes and Kerr’s high jump triumph – secured in a dramatic jump-off against American Shelby McEwen – saw the New Zealand anthem played in the Olympic athletics stadium for the first time since Dame Valerie Adams won shot put gold in London in 2012.

High jump hasn’t featured prominently in Kiwis’ sporting diet, but during Kerr’s tense duel with McEwen, all Kiwi sports fans became short-lived experts on the nuance of the Fosbury flop. His winning leap of 2.34m in the jump-off put New Zealand on top of the high-jumping world.

The Black Ferns Sevens underlined their legacy of supremacy by repeating their gold medal effort from Tokyo. They hold the highest standards in the sport, connect effortlessly with fans and serve as a reminder of the power shift in the national game.

There was glory beyond the top of the podium, too. Maddi Wesche nearly bagged gold in the shot put and Hayden Wilde shared a beautiful moment of camaraderie with Alex Yee, after the Briton pipped him to triathlon gold.

The gold haul will live long in the memory, finally surpassing the eight the nation bagged in Los Angeles 1984, at a Games where competition was limited by the withdrawal of Soviet-bloc countries.

We need not measure the achievements of New Zealand’s 2024 Olympics team by per-capita metrics. The triumph of the heroes of Paris can be weighed in pure gold.