Best medal roughies for Rio
While NZ will have a number of gold medal favourites - the men’s rowing pair and Lisa Carrington among them. We look at six Kiwi athletes or teams that could spring an Olympic Games shock.
Ryan Fox (men’s golf)
Fox sits 43rd on the current Rio rankings and even that could be argued as generous, given the likes of Mikko Ilonen and Felipe Aguilar are behind the European Challenge Tour player.
But Fox, who pipped Michael Hendry for the second NZ spot behind 12th-ranked Danny Lee, is a long-hitter who has the ability to post extremely low scores.
Despite all the high-profile withdrawals, there’s still a lot of elite golfers in the field, but the inform Aucklander could give a medal a rattle.
Men’s eight (rowing)
The likely podium make-up for the blue riband rowing event is forecast to feature Great Britain, Germany and The Netherlands. Expect the young NZ crew to be pushing them.
Most of the crew have shown how to win at youth level, claiming the world under-23 title in 2013 and 2014, then were fourth at last year’s senior world champs.
New Zealand’s premier men’s sweep oar boat has long been the pair of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, but this crew could be close to recapturing the medalwinning form of NZ eights in Munich and Montreal.
Men’s quad (rowing)
Twice they tried to qualify for the Games, and twice they failed by the barest of margins.
Then earlier this month they found they’d been denied a place by a Russian crew with a drugs cheat. One disqualification later, and John Storey, George Bridgewater, Nathan Flannery and Jade Uru were off to Rio.
Could they possibly make the jump from also-rans to contenders? Bridgewater has an Olympic bronze medal and Storey and Uru were at London 2012, so the experience and ability is there.
Women’s K4 500m (canoe sprint)
Ninth at last year’s world champs, the Kiwi combination of Aimee Fisher, Kayla Imrie, Jaimee Lovett and Caitlin Ryan needed a big improvement to make the Rio podium.
But there were signs this year throughout their World Cup campaign in Europe that work with coach Rene Olsen is paying rapid dividends. They’ve developed a quick start and if they can find the finish to match that, they could be in the photo at the end of 500 metres of power paddling.
Dylan Schmidt, men’s trampoline (gymnastics)
The 19-year-old confirmed his spot when second at test event in Rio this year.
That completed a path that began in earnest when Schmidt won gold at the Youth Olympics in China in 2014. He then finished 15th in his first open world championships in the same year, and improved to claim ninth place in 2015. ’’The top eight is what I’m aiming for,’’ Schmidt said recently.
New Zealand (women’s football)
The Football Ferns are ranked 17th in the world, but there’s long been a belief this side is better than that.
It made the quarterfinals at London 2012 before bowing out to the United States, then suffered a disappointing World Cup last year, being unable to progress from the group stage. That could be a major problem in Rio too, as their pool features gold-medal favourites US and third-ranked France.