Less rare than precious
prizegiving.
Should it be different at the Olympics? It should not.
The pair, having received an International Fair Play award, are being considered for the Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship. This is not because the moments that the New Zealand and US competitors shared were so jaw-droppingly rare but because they encapsulated, so very well, something not to be left behind in even the most rarefied heights of sporting achievement - a sense of goodwill.
A message worth sending out to the world. And if, for the onlooking world, this was the most memorable NZ achievement, then we can live with that too. The success of any country’s Olympic campaign should be measured not solely by the medal count but also by the extent to which its representatives made their country proud and met the challenges inherent in each of their sports. On both counts, the Rio Olympics were a success. Eighteen medals represents the best haul so far.
The golden achievements of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, Lisa Carrington, Mahe Drysdale and Blair Tuke and Peter Burling of course stand particularly proud.
But without diminishing their achievements it is surely also true that these were not necessarily a games where the golds dominated public perception quite as much as they have in the past.
Hearts surged every bit as hard when Eliza Mccartney, just 19, claimed her bronze in the pole vault. If there is such a thing as truly Olympian poise, this teenager had it.
Mccartney and fellow teen Lydia Ko - exulting in the experience even though the Olympics are not, traditionally, the mountaintop for her field of excellence - evoked a different sense of admiration than that of older athletes like skuller Drysdale, victorious by such a fine margin, and silver medallist shot putter Val Adams, a model of integrity and dignity.
These are warriors of New Zealand sport having, for so long, achieved so much but sacrificed so much and toiled so hard and long, that they carry what could so easily have been a crushing weight of expectations, both personal and public. And they emerge, quite apart from the medals, with honour intact.