New Zealand is aiming for a record haul of 14 medals at next year's Rio Olympics.
Wednesday marks one year until the Games begin and Alex Baumann, the chief executive of High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ), which funds many of the athletes competing in Rio, is hopeful New Zealand can improve on the 13 medals won in London in 2012.
London delivered New Zealand its equal-biggest medal haul for any Olympics, with the 13 won overall the same as at the 1988 Seoul Games, but with six golds taken home - double the gold haul from the Korean event.
And with rugby sevens and golf now on the programme, Baumann is hopeful the 2012 record could be surpassed.
"Certainly in 2012, six gold medals was outstanding. It'd be great to get a similar number or even perhaps one higher than that," he said.
Baumann said the target was ambitious, particularly with competition getting tougher.
New Zealand finished third equal for medal count per capita at the London Games. The most gold medals the country has won came at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, when eight were claimed (with 11 in total).
Golfer Lydia Ko will help boost New Zealand's medal chances at the Rio Olympics. Photo: Photosport
"If you take a look at the numbers for example in 1992 [at the Barcelona Olympics], 64 countries won medals. In 2012, 85 countries won medals. The number of countries that won gold medals in 1992 was 37 and in 2012 it was 54, so it is getting much more competitive," he said.
Baumann, a former swimmer who won two Olympic gold medals for Canada at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, believes the HPSNZ approach is world leading.
"We do quite a bit of intelligence gathering... We have people who have worked in other systems," he said
"It isn't a complex system and we try to simplify it as much as possible. We make sure resources are going to the right areas in terms of focusing on athlete campaigns and coaching," he said.
"If I take a look at Canada there are a number of organisations that do similar things so it does become slightly bureaucratic. Australia does struggle with the federal system where they have the institutes and academies and obviously the Australia Institute of Sport... One advantage we have is that we have the investment arm and the delivery arm under the one roof and make decisions quite quickly."
High Performance Sport NZ chief executive Alex Baumann Photo: Photosport
New Zealand's success at the London Games has generated interest in New Zealand's performance programmes, said Baumann.
"We have the Japanese coming down next week and we have had several other countries visit... But the key for us is the targeted funding strategy."
The HPSNZ budget is $60 million. "We don't spread out resources too thinly. We do get some criticism that we are not supporting enough sports, but it's dependent on the resources you have - and even if you had a lot of resource I still think you need to take a targeted approach and some other countries have struggled with that."
