Olympics: Selectors name first five for winter Games

The New Zealand Olympic Committee yesterday named their initial team for next year's Salt Lake winter Games, with more new faces hopeful of joining the five chosen.

The team was named by the team chef de mission, Geoff Balme, and includes first-time Olympians Todd Haywood and Jesse Teat, both slalom skiers, plus speed skater Mark Jackson.

Skier Claudia Riegler will be attending her third Games and luge racer Angela Paul her second.

Balme was confident the team would expand to possibly the largest contingent sent to a winter Games. Nine athletes competed at Calgary in 1988.

He said Liz Couch (skeleton event) was among a group of eight athletes still attempting to fulfil NZOC selection criteria.

"I have my fingers crossed that we can name some more."

The other frontline candidates are Alan Henderson, Matt Dallow, Angus Ross, Mark Edmond and Stephen Harrison, who form New Zealand's two-and four-man bobsleigh teams, and Naila Hassan, Toni Carroll and Tionette Stoddard, who have been sharing the duties in the women's two-person bob.

The Games loom as a pivotal career moment for the 25-year-old Riegler, who crashed out of the Lillehammer and Nagano Olympics.

Four years ago, the slalom skier was ranked No 2 in the world, but she has been off the pace this season, finishing in the 30s and 40s in World Cup races.

Balme said she was a proven performer on her day, while her Olympic failures hurt.

"You can see it in her eyes [that it hurts] and you can see it is driving her," he said.

In her best form, Riegler gives New Zealand a remote shot at a second winter Olympic medal - skier Annelise Coberger won a slalom silver at Albertville in 1992 - though no one expects a New Zealander will stand on the dais at Salt Lake City.

The improving Paul and Couch, if she can nail selection, are likely to be among New Zealand's best performers.

Balme said Couch was doing extremely well and could cement her Olympic selection at a World Cup meeting at Lake Placid this weekend.

If she was ranked in the top eight after these races, Couch would automatically qualify in the skeleton event.

"Liz is on track, but we just have to wait until her results come through," he said.

"We are hoping we can confirm her selection on Christmas Eve."

Even if she misses out on the top eight, Couch has a backstop.

The four final positions in the Olympic field will be up for grabs at a Challenge Cup competition in Switzerland next month and Couch, given her form, would be one of the favourites.

The selection position of the men's two-man and four-man bob crews is complex.

Both crews have met the international selection criteria, but the mathematical permutations on whether they will meet the NZOC requirement of the potential to finish in the top 75 per cent of the Olympic field are continuing.

The issue centres on how many other countries will qualify for the Games and how many are likely to finish behind the New Zealanders.

Balme was happy with the selection of three alpine skiers and the reappearance of a New Zealand short-track skater.

He saw skiing as having as much potential as any of the winter sports to produce top-line New Zealand internationals.

"If we are going to do well in these sports, it has to be skiing because we have got the facilities and we have got the talent coming in at the bottom," he said.

Balme hopes Jackson can lead the rebirth of short-track speed skating and he suggested New Zealand could again field a relay team at the 2006 Olympics.

Jackson, 21 on Friday, has a World Cup ranking of 16th and has been travelling to Calgary in Canada to train since he was 14.

- NZPA