Olympic veteran motivates New Zealand swim team on departure. The 16-strong New Zealand swim team flew out of Auckland last night for their final preparation camp ahead of the London Olympics. It is the biggest New Zealand swim team to qualify for an Olympics and the team left with the support and encouragement from this countrys oldest living Olympian, Ngaire Galloway. As Ngaire Lane, the 86 year old swimmer is the only surviving member of the 1948 New Zealand Olympic team, which was the last time the Games were staged in London. The New Zealand campaign for this year has used the 1948 team as the motivation with the team uniform modelled from that team. Now living in Cambridge, Ngaire sent a message of encouragement to the team, conveyed by New Zealand Olympic Committee Secretary General, Kereyn Smith. The team were all moved by her message and I am sure it will be a real motivation for them, said Rushdee Warley, the Team Leader for the London Olympic campaign. It was interesting to hear how that team took six weeks by ship to reach London. That must have been a huge challenge for a swimmer to basically stop training. So it was incredible that she went on to win the British Championships prior to the Games, and to make the semifinals at the London Games. When we think of the advancement not only in travel but in training and sports science, in many ways we are in a different world. But her dedication, drive and determination are attributes that our team will take into these Olympics. The team was also addressed by Alex Baumann, CEO of High Performance Sport NZ as well as a former Olympic gold medallist in the pool, and Swimming New Zealand President, Ross Butler.' The team flies to Belgium where they will complete their final staging camp before heading in to the Games Village before their competition which begins on 28 July. The full team is: Daniel Bell, Lauren Boyle, Dylan Dunlop-Barrett, Amaka Gessler, Natasha Hind, Melissa Ingram, Gareth Kean, Steven Kent, Samantha Lucie-Smith, Andrew McMillan, Penelope Marshall, Carl ODonnell, Hayley Palmer, Glenn Snyders, Matthew Stanley and Natalie Wiegersma. The support staff are: Team Leader/Manager: Rushdee Warley; Team Coach: Mark Regan; Assistant Coaches: Gary Hurring Scott Talbot, Jeremy Duncan; Physiologist: Tom Vandenbogaerde; Biomechanist/Analyst: Antonio Cala-Mejias.
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