Lisa Carrington: The new golden queen of NZ sport...

Lisa Carrington: The new golden queen of NZ sport...

Kiwi sports fans were as devastated as big Val Adams when she almost failed to get entered in the Womens’ Shot-put competition at the London Olympic Games 2012, along with a number of other Kiwi  competitors. The NZ Government  has come in on the act too – Minister of Sport Murray McCully will be asking the big question when the New Zealand Olympic team arrives back here in a couple of days. As he rightfully reminded everybody concerned, significant amounts of tax-payers money is paid out in sponsorship of sport in New Zealand –  including the Olympic team.

It is very hard to assess just what the real impact of the stress generated by the controversy on Val Adams performance was, but it had to be significant. It was she, herself, who discovered the error of  her omission from her event and the hours it took to rectify the error obviously impacted on her performance. Sadly the magnificent performance of the eventual gold-medalist from Belarus was overlooked. Val got nowhere close to her distances on the day. Val Adams the reigning Olympic champion from Beijing, and three-times world champion, may not have been good enough on the day anyway. As Val said, she could only control her own performance, not that of her rival on the day.

New Zealand sports fans can be very fickle. They can one day be completely critical of opposition performances, and on another completely reap New Zealand’s own ‘tall poppies’  if they can’t measure up to public expectations. Nick Willis’ failure in the 1500m final, after a fine semi-final performance, is a classic example  of fickle Kiwi  fans. Nick may have just given it all in the semi-final and had no gas left in the tank. Sure his performance was extremely disappointing – but Nick is human and not comparable to the gods of yesteryear – the immortal Jack Lovelock at Berlin in 1936 (in front of Hitler and the Nazi regime), the arguably greatest Kiwi Olympian of all time, Peter Snell at Rome in 1960 in the 800m, and at Tokyo four years later in 1964, winning both the  800m for the second time, and becoming the successor to Lovelock by winning the 1500m as well. In 1974 the smooth running John Walker became the third leg of the triple by winning the 1500m as well. Walker was one of the greatest sub-four minute milers in history, running a hundred over the distance. How can we fault poor Nick Willis because he is a mere mortal and failed to measure up to those super-stars who set the standards for later champions over the distance in succeeding years.

New Zealand competitors won five gold medals during the games in rowing, sailing and yesterday in kayaking. Lisa Carrington’s magnificent  k1 200 victory yesterday was the changing of the guard, the handing over of the baton, the coronation of a new Queen Of New Zealand sport. Other athletes won three silver medals and five bronze – equally the 12 record haul in any Olympics.

New Zealand has to be proud of all its competitors across the wide range of sports at the marvellous London 2012 Olympic Games.

http://pjpetterson.blog.co.nz