Walker Looks to London
Kawerau BMX rider Sarah Walker, 21, took first place at the World BMX championships in the cruiser class (large wheel diameter) and the elite women’s title indoors at the Adelaide Showgrounds. Walker, a bronze…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Phenomenal in Peoria
Auckland athlete Kim Smith, 27, who is based in the United States, has won the 36th annual Steamboat Classic 4-mile women’s race in Peoria, Illinois, running the third fastest four-mile in history. Covering the…
Point of Pride
The All Whites have secured their first ever point at a FIFA tournament in the South African Confederations Cup. Though goal-less for all three matches played, the New Zealand team — dressed in black…
Positive Thinking
All Whites coach Ricki Herbert is confident the All Whites will earn their first ever point in a FIFA Confederations Cup this month in South Africa. “I think we have to believe it’s a…
King of the Derby
New Zealand jockey Larry Cassidy rode New Plymouth trainer John Wheeler’s Court Ruler to victory in the $500,000 Queensland Derby at Eagle Farm. Wheeler won his first Derby with his champion Rough Habit in…
First in Columbia
Professional triathlete Aucklander Terenzo Bozzone, 24, has won the 26th annual Columbia Triathlon. In a stirring fight to the finish, Bozzone overtook Andrew Yoder of Columbia, Pennsylvania near the halfway point of the 10km…
For a Worthy Cause
New Zealand-born actress, director and producer Anna Wilding has launched a new charity that aims to fill an overlooked gap in the charity and not-for-profit marketplace. The Wilding Foundation awards scholarships to those…
Snowed In
Some of New Zealand’s top ski spots are reviewed by worldwide online ski site On the Snow, including “the quirky ski field that is home to Burton’s The Stash, a natural terrain run with…
On Slick for a First
Teenage jockey Samantha Collett — who in only three years has won more than 100 races — rode Sir Slick in the $AU2 million Emirates Doncaster Mile at Royal Randwick, the “biggest race” she’s…
Football Ambassador
6 April 2009 – Christchurch professional footballer Ryan Nelsen, 31, is a pivotal member of English Premier League side Blackburn Rovers, one of a number of teams fighting against relegation this season. Nelsen has…
Potential Pro
Christchurch student James Meredith, 19, is a freshman at Boise State University and since joining the university’s tennis team in January, Meredith has been called “unbelievable” and “one of the best talents” the squad…
Big Easy Baller
Auckland local Sean Marks is enjoying regular playing time on the New Orleans Hornets, one of America’s top basketball teams. Recently interviewed by InsiderHoops.com, Marks describes how he grew up in a markedly different…
Promoting Touch
New Zealander Miles Darby, 46, IT project manager at Credit Suisse Singapore, is also president of the city’s amateur Monsoon Touch Football Club. Darby has been playing the sport in Singapore for over a…
A New Deal
Phillip Alder of the New York Times describes “a tied world record,” charting out an exceedingly rare occurrence at last year’s national bridge congress in Hamilton, 60 miles south of Auckland. “New Zealand is…
Courting Comparison
New Zealand netball is the “main ‘girl’s game'” and has a “‘World Championships’ that only Australia and New Zealand can realistically win,” writes Frank Shanly in a profile about the sport in Indiana daily…
Medals From the Velodrome
Christchurch omnium champion Hayden Godfrey, 30, has won gold at the Beijing UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classic series. Godfrey beat Great Britain’s Chris Newton in the men’s 60-lap, 15km scratch race final. New…
An Honourable Year
New Zealand’s 2008 Beijing contingent was well represented in the New Year’s Honours list and included Christchurch Paralympics swimmer Sophie Pascoe, 16, board sailor Tom Ashley and shot putter Valerie Vili. In total, seven…
Out on a Win
Champion Taranaki jockey Greg Childs, 46, is retiring from a 30-year career which began in New Zealand in the 1970s as an apprentice and ended with a win in the Bounty Hawk Handicap on…
Tall Fern Makes UConn
Auckland basketball player Jessica McCormack, 19, who was the youngest member of the New Zealand team at the Beijing Olympics this year, now plays for the top-ranked University of Connecticut (UConn) as a…
Definitely No Regrets
The Kiwis dismissed the sceptics and the Kangaroos to win the Rugby League World Cup in Brisbane, beating the Australians 34-20, their first ever World Cup win. Outside of the New Zealand camp, few…
Cambodian Stint Rewarded
World aerobics champion Botany Downs local Angela McMillan, 28, has been in Phnom Penh coaching the Cambodian men’s team ahead of December’s Asian Aerobic Gymnastics Championships in Bangkok. McMillan, who claimed the world title…
Trumps in Mexico
Whangarei triathlete Sam Warriner, 37, took gold at the Huatulco BG World Cup in Mexico and with the win becomes the 2008 BG Triathlon World Cup series champion. Warriner was victorious in a time…
Sailing Event Makes NZ
Lake Rotorua will host the 2009 IFDS World Blind Sailing Championships from 12-21 March. Organizing committee chairman Don McGowan says the goal is to provide a world class regatta, combined with a true New…
Triumph for the Ferns
The Silver Ferns have won the deciding netball test against England 61-22 in the best of three series final in Palmerston North. Both teams came out firing on Saturday night but it was the…
Dixon’s Big Apple Re-run
On 23 October 1983, Nelson-born middle distance runner Rod Dixon raced past UK-emigrant Geoff Smith and won the New York City Marathon raising his hands to the sky in victory. The winning snapshot is…
Flight from the Top
New Zealand world and Guinness record skydiver Wendy Smith was one of three daredevils to leap from an aircraft at a record height of 9000m in the skies above Mount Everest, free-falling for one minute…
Fleecing the Competition
New Zealand took home four of the six titles at the 13th Golden Shears World Championships held in Bjerkrheim, Norway, with Stratford farmer Paul Avery, 41 and Napier shearer John Kirkpatrick, 38, coming first…
Willis’ Photo Finish
Olympic bronze medallist Lower Hutt athlete Nick Willis, 25, has won New York’s Fifth Avenue Mile, a race which John Walker won in 1984. Michigan-based Willis finished in 3 minutes, 50.5 seconds to…
Taking on the Chutes
The fourth annual Volkl NZ Freeski Open held at Treble Cone in late August, marking the season opener of the international ski calendar, saw Dunedin’s Alastair Eason and Wanaka’s Janina Kuzma take the top…
On Board for Gold
World champion Auckland windsurfer Tom Ashley, 24, sailed past his rivals, to claim first place in the men’s competition and a gold medal, the third won by the New Zealand Olympic contingent in Beijing….
From Within the Soul
Lower Hutt runner Nick Willis surged forward in the final moments of the men’s 1500m for third place, in a race Willis’ University of Michigan coach Ron Warhurst said the 25-year-old “always had the…
In Search of a History
New Zealand film producer and public speaker Anna Wilding is now writing regularly for the TennisGrandStand site, and in her first column, as the US Open approaches, she writes about her great uncle, tennis…
Four Years Pays Off
Athens silver medallist triathlete Bevan Docherty, 31, took third place and a bronze medal in the men’s triathlon at the Beijing Olympics and is determined to try for the gold in four years time….
Medal Haul in Beijing
Hastings twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell took gold medals in the double skulls beating their German rivals by 0.01 sec, the win on the same day Mahe Drysdale won a bronze in the single skulls and…
Gold in the Bird’s Nest
Auckland athlete Valerie Vili, 23, has won a gold medal in shot put at the Beijing Olympics, the first for New Zealand in track and field since John Walker’s gold in the 1500m at…
Cooking by Numbers
Wellingtonian Matt Moss, 36, left New Zealand 16 years ago to play rugby in Britain, Germany and the United States winding up in Beijing working for catering company, Aramark as operations manager at the…
Into the Crystal Ball
Mark Todd, voted Rider of the Century 20th by the International Equestrian Centre, is hoping to compete next at the World Championships in Kentucky in 2010 and is not ruling out the London 2012…
Macchiato Marathon
The 182-strong New Zealand Olympic team will have flat whites and long blacks on tap in Beijing thanks to award-winning barista Julianne Frith, 21, from Auckland, who was selected by a panel of former…
Joltin’ with the Jays
Aucklander Scott Campbell, 23, shook hands with Joe DiMaggio in 1995 as a New Zealand representative at the World Children’s Baseball Fair in Japan and this week, 13 years later, Campbell played Dimaggio’s Yankee…
One of Five Doubles
Opunake-born middle-distance runner Peter Snell, who achieved the 800m and 1500m Olympic double, is included alongside other double victors, Dame Kelly Holmes and Albert Hill, on a BBC blog in a build-up to this…
Adventure at Speed
Christchurch endurance athlete and orienteering champion Chris Forne, 31, has navigated Team Nike to first place in America’s 10-day adventure race, Primal Quest Montana 2008. Over 800km and up heights of more than 30,000m,…
Grass Court Skill
New Zealand’s Number 1 tennis player Marina Erakovic, 20, who has risen 100 places in world rankings to within the top 50, is compared with sporting great Justine Henin on Wimbledon’s official site. In…
Wood Choppin’ Win
Auckland lumberjack Dion Lane, 31, has sawn and chopped his way to overall victory at the Midwestern Lumberjack Championships held in Rochester, United States, beating fellow New Zealander and brother-in-law Jason Wynyard. Lane…
Big Red Mystery Solved
Renowned New Zealand-bred gelding Phar Lap, who won 37 of his 51 starts and the 1930 Melbourne Cup was killed by arsenic poisoning in 1932, scientists have confirmed after decades of speculation. A handwritten…
Colorado’s Horse Surgeon
New Zealand-born veterinarian and world authority on equine joints, Dr Wayne McIlwraith is the director of Colorado State University’s Equine Orthopaedic Research Center, each year performing as many as 500 surgeries on racing thoroughbreds….
Double Victory
New Zealanders Bevan Docherty and Samantha Warriner each made podium finishes in the triathlon world championships in Vancouver, Docherty taking second place in the men’s elite and Warriner third in the women’s. New Zealand-born…
Spontaneous Hors Concurs
Mark Todd, 51, and his Olympic stead, 10-year-old Gandalf made for a surprise entry at a Lincolnshire dressage show. Trudy Clark, who runs twice-monthly affiliated competitions at Elms Farm Equestrian Centre, could barely believe…
Reed Races for US
Palmerston North-born Matt Reed is 6-foot-5 and the world’s tallest triathelete. Two weeks ago Reed, 32, won the US men’s team trials in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and secured a place on the American Olympic team….
Nadal’s NZ Predecessor
Christchurch-born and educated Anthony Wilding was a world tennis champion from 1911-1914, and up until this week held a 90-year undefeated consecutive record for winning four titles in Monte Carlo. Overall, Wilding…
Gold in Manchester
New Zealander Hayden Godfrey has won the men’s omnium title at the track cycling world championships in Manchester. The omnium was introduced at world championship level last year and includes five events: the…
Chopper Challenge
Mount Cook National Park is to host the 2008 World Heli Challenge over two weeks in August. After a six-year hiatus the competition, deemed the most legendary freeriding and freeskiing event on the planet,…
Alaskan War Chant
Taranaki basketball player Jeremiah Trueman, 19, has introduced New Zealand’s haka to his Alaskan team, the UAA Seawolves, and the crowds love it. Trueman, a junior transfer to the Seawolves, said he was trying…
Snell’s Still Running
Olympic champion and New Zealand’s greatest athlete of the 20th century Peter Snell looks back over the last 70 years and discusses, age, Auckland and Arthur Lydiard. Now based in Dallas and…
Skier Continues Streak
Otago paralympian Adam Hall has slalomed to yet another victory at the Wells Fargo Disabled Invitational at Winter Park in Colorado, climbing to the top of the medal table winning gold, his seventh medal this…
NZ Makes a Dash
Seachange is primed to be the first ever New Zealand-trained horse to race at Royal Ascot. She will contest the Group Two Windsor Forest Stakes over a mile in June, if she wins…
Hall Takes out Huntsman
Paralympian ski racer Adam Hall has become the first New Zealander to win the United States’prestigious Huntsman Cup. The 20-year-old from Outram won seven gold medals in a row to claim the Cup,…
