NZ Athletics team takes confidence into Paris Olympics

9:48 am on 19 July 2024

Barry Guy, Sports Reporter

New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr celebrates winning the Men’s High Jump Final at the 2024 World Indoor Athletic Championships, Glasgow Photo: PHOTOSPORT

New Zealand's biggest ever athletics team will compete at the Paris Olympics and they are set to add to the rich history the sport has at the Games.

Athletics is one of New Zealand's most successful sports at the Olympics with 26 medals including 10 gold. Only rowing has done better.

Dame Valerie Adams has dominated the Olympic athletics honours since 2008 with two gold, a silver and a bronze medal.

Seventeen athletes have been selected to compete in Paris.

Medals are going to be hard to come by for all the members of the New Zealand athletics team including the two who won gold at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March.

High jumper Hamish Kerr and middle distance runner George Beamish were delighted to have won titles, but both admitted the Olympics was their main focus for the year.

Kerr said the success in Glasgow showed that he is on the right track, but despite that success and experience he has now gained, he still gets nervous.

"I think that something like a world indoors is easy to put to bed in that you don't grow up wanting to win world indoors, you grow up wanting to be an Olympian," Kerr told RNZ.

"So I think there is a different mindset, a different expectation going into what is such a massively bigger event."

Beamish won the world indoor 1500m title, but will be competing in the 3000m steeplechase in Paris.

The 27-year-old was not selected for the Tokyo Games, but has made every national team since.

Beamish felt he now had the required experience.

"I'm excited to put the black jersey on again, I don't just want to compete at the Olympics, I want to really put on the best performance I can and challenge for medals there."

New Zealand’s Tom Walsh competing at the 2023 World Championships Photo: PHOTOSPORT

Shot-putter Tom Walsh is heading to his third Olympics with two bronze medals to his name.

American Ryan Crouser is the two-time defending champion and world record holder and remains the man to beat.

Walsh, who finished second at world indoors in March, conceded it was going to be extremely difficult to get on the podium in Paris.

"The distances have just been crazy, so it's going to be tough to get a medal. But we don't do things because they're easy and so I'm going to put my hand up again and challenge for a medal.

"I know when things go well I have the capability of getting a gold," Walsh said.

Jacko Gill is also in the men's shot put competition.

Pole vaulter Eliza McCartney burst onto the international stage with a bronze medal in Rio in 2016. She was then plagued by injuries and missed the Tokyo Games.

McCartney will line-up on the Paris runway with little expectation, just like in Rio, and she liked that.

"It's the same, but it's different, like I want to have the same feelings, but for different reasons. The reason I want that same feeling is because I think it works for me. I've found that in competitions over the last eight years, the less expectation I have and the more enjoyment I have for just doing what I love, the better my performance is."

New Zealand's Eliza McCartney competing at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships, Glasgow. Photo: PHOTOSPORT

Kerr, Walsh, Gill, Maddi Wesche, Lauren Bruce, Sam Tanner and Camille French are all returning to the Games also.

Kerr was excited to be competing after the Covid-hit Tokyo Games, where he finished 10th.

"I'm almost going to feel like a first-timer again. The whole added bonus of being able to experience the village in its full flight and having all my friends and family there to watch is going to add such a cool level to what was already an amazing experience in Tokyo."

The Paris Olympic athletics schedule runs from 1 - 11 August.