Female athletes have inspired New Zealanders with amazing performances at Olympic and Commonwealth Games.
Yvette Williams won the 1952 Olympic long jump, our first female gold medallist. Marise Chamberlain was third in the 800m in Tokyo in 1964 and became our first female athletics medallist. But it took a long time for the dam to burst – in 1988 rowers Nikki Payne and Lynley Hannan won silver, as did equestrian three-day eventers Tinks Pottinger and Margaret Knighton.
After that, all bets were off. Barbara Kendall won a famous boardsailing gold at Barcelona in 1992 and followed with silver and bronze at the next two Olympics. Annelise Coberger, downhill skier, won silver at Albertville in 1992, the first southern hemisphere athlete to win a Winter Olympics medal.
Memories flood back… Lorraine Moller’s brave marathon bronze in 1992, Sally Clark’s silver in the three-day eventing in 1996 and Sarah Ulmer’s sensational deeds in the velodrome in Athens in 2004.
The women began winning medals ever more frequently, with the fabulous Evers-Swindell twins and then Dame Valerie Adams outstanding. And then came Dame Lisa Carrington, the sprint paddler who’s won five gold medals and a bronze since 2012 and now has serious claims to being our greatest Olympic athlete.
It’s noticeable how widespread the women’s accomplishments have been – not just in traditionally strong New Zealand sports. Luuka Jones (canoe slalom), Eliza McCartney (pole vault), Lydia Ko (two golf medals), Joe Aleh and Polly Powrie (gold and silver in the 470 dinghy), Natalie Rooney (trap shooting), Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (snowboarding gold and silver) are examples.
More recently, the New Zealand women’s sevens rugby team has won Olympic silver then gold and there’s been a succession of stunning rowing performances, none more spine-tingling than single sculler Emma Twigg’s fairytale gold at her fourth attempt in Tokyo in 2021.
Naturally most sports focus rests on the Olympic Games, but there have been wonderful Commonwealth Games feats by our women, too. Not just Yvette Williams, with her three gold medals at Vancouver in 1954, but Val Young, who won seven medals, five of them gold, in the shot put and discus from 1958-74, Dot Coleman, who won the foil in 1962 and became the darling of the New Zealand team, Jaynie Parkhouse, with her wonderful 800m freestyle gold in Christchurch in 1974, and Rebecca Perrott, who was even more impressive in the pool four years later.
There may have been nothing more inspiring than Para athlete Neroli Fairhall winning an archery gold medal in Brisbane in 1982. When an English journalist asked her if she had an advantage shooting sitting down, she said: ‘I don’t know; I’ve never shot standing up.’ In Los Angeles in 1984, Fairhall became the first Para athlete to compete at an Olympics.
In later Commonwealth Games, Anne Audain, Stephanie Foster, Anna Simcic, Tania Murray, Nikki Jenkins, Leilani Rorani, Dame Valerie Adams, Joelle King, Sophie Pascoe, Jo Edwards, Julia Ratcliffe, Ellesse Andrews, Bryony Botha and our netballers, women’s hockey players and sevens teams have given us never-to-be-forgotten moments.
This is far from an exhaustive list. There have been too many outstanding Games performances by New Zealand women to list, which is proof of the power of the role model. It’s why the battle to have gender balance in our sport has been so important and why International Women’s Day on March 8 every year is so significant.
As more women have earned selection in Games teams, and then excelled, they’ve inspired youngsters who’ve followed, and the rate of the women’s success has snowballed.
We acknowledge the commitment and efforts of our National Sporting Organisations, HPSNZ and Sport NZ who have supported the growth of women’s sport in Aotearoa.
A trickle of medals has become a torrent. Our female athletes have always had the ability; they just needed the opportunity. That’s happening now and just look at the results.
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