SPARC predicts 10 London medals

Sports funding agency SPARC has predicted that New Zealand's athletes are on target to deliver 10 medals at the 2012 London Olympics.

At a media briefing to analyse the year in sport, SPARC High Performance Manager Marty Toomey said 2009 "had been a pretty good year, but we cannot be complacent".

The reasons for optimism stem from New Zealand achieving 10 medals in pinnacle events for Olympic disciplines, the highest total since 1992. This total includes six world champions and four new world champions, numbers have been achieved despite a number of quality athletes either taking a year out of competition, or suffering significant injuries, this year, including Tom Ashley, Andrew Murdoch, Barbara Kendall, Ben Fouhy, Nathan Twaddle, Nick Willis and Rob Waddell.

Balancing that is the number of athletes achieving top eight results has dropped from 27 in 2008 to 24 and just four sports have contributed to the medal tally.

Add to that the fact it is not just New Zealanders taking "gap years", many of the world's elite athletes take a back seat in the first year of an Olympic cycle, and that is why SPARC has described 2010 as a "critical" year for assessing their chances in London.

Of most concern to SPARC will be that rowing, cycling, athletics and sailing delivered medals only in pinnacle events this year. Of the six Olympic sports that receive targeted funding, triathlon and swimming failed to deliver medals while no non-targeted Olympic sports reached the podium either.

Triathlon is one of the toughest sports in the programme to succeed in as a result of only six medals being on offer each year. However, officials are believed to be frustrated at the inability of swimming to deliver top-eight, let alone medal-winning performances on the biggest stage.

"There's still a high reliance on rowing," Toomey said, acknowledging that more than a quarter of New Zealand's top-eight performances were delivered by the oarsmen and women.

He added "cycling has been strong and yachting has had a pretty good year. The system needs triathlon, swimming, kayaking and equestrian to be in the mix too."

Toomey said that statistical modelling put together by the Government agency tended to suggest that New Zealand's 24 top-eight performances this year would not be enough to get the 10 medals they have asked for in London. 

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