Olympics: Kiwi athletes stay close to home

By PETER JESSUP

The New Zealand Olympic team are building on old traditions as they set up their village with its "One team, our team" theme.

A carved entranceway, or whakaheke, to their section of the athletes' village sets the tone.

The whakaheke was designed and made by Hawera carver TeOranga Whareaitu, who also did the entrance to Wellington's new sports stadium. It is designed to bring peace from home, strength in endeavour and honour.

The gateway, which weighs around 200kg, will be taken to all future Games as an inspiration and a reminder to competitors of their home.

Whareaitu belongs to the Ngati Ruanui tribe. The carving follows their legend-telling, with Olympic and national symbols worked in. It is also a guardian, so the apex features a koru that represents the wise head of an ancestor.

The backbone of a dog stands for strength, a spider's web for the rivers of the country running over the land, the Kiwi and silver fern recognise all New Zealanders, the Olympic rings the five continents in which Kiwi competitors will perform, and the Olympic torch lights the way for those who will compete in future Games.

The next obvious transplant from home are AA-style road signs pointing to village destinations, with Mt Cook and Eketahuna thrown in as well.

The team-building exercise has been put together by former hockey team captain Peter Miskimmin, now the athletes' liaison officer.

"We don't want them to think of themselves as the softball team or the basketball team, but as the New Zealand team."

Scrawled on whiteboards in every entrance hall are the words "G'day mate." And a poster features runner Murray Halberg in Rome, with his quote: "Your result should not give you the opportunity to say, 'If only'."

Miskimmin has a new poster and quote for each day, with the likes of Sir Edmund Hillary, Peter Snell and Todd Blackadder to come.

The Kiwis have six houses and a block of three-level apartments in a quiet corner of the village, backing on to a wetland reserve and looking straight across to the main venue site.

The big teams are all together, but an effort has been made to group the others under the One Team theme, so triathletes, archers, weightlifters and the judo reps - men and women - are all together, in a shared home that is one of thousands to be sold after the Games.

Despite the presence of the high-security Silverwater jail and its electrified fences on one side and an industrial park on the other, the homes built on what was wasteland will sell for around $380,000 each.

Flags and sheets bearing messages of goodwill signed by hundreds of schoolchildren adorn the common rooms. A poster of the "2000 All Blacks" features the present team and, thanks to clever computer work, players going back to George Nepia's day in an elongated picture that looks like those old photos that include the whole school.

Near the the New Zealand camp are Uruguay, Japan, Bosnia and Turkmenistan, the competitors from the former Soviet republic attracting attention in their Russian-style hats, which look as if they are made from a whole sheepskin.

Plenty of passing athletes from other countries have stopped to have their pictures taken at the gateway, often mistaking the Turkmenistanis for New Zealanders because of the sheep connection.

The Kiwis' home, with its multitude of flags and silver ferns hanging from the balconies, is easily the most identifiable.

The only other country to add a touch of home is Britain, with a telephone box done in Dr Who style in front of its village.

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