New Zealand sporting triumphs are multiplying

New Zealand’s rate of international sports achievements is increasing exponentially. It’s difficult to keep up.

Every month, it seems, we’re saluting our record-breaking All Blacks, our rowers or cyclists, emerging golf star Lydia Ko, canoeist Lisa Carrington, the fabulous Valerie Adams or some other sports hero.

There was a time when New Zealand’s true triumphs in the international arena were relatively scarce. Any world title was guaranteed front page headlines and an Olympic medal was so rare it could cement a reputation for a lifetime.

But New Zealand won 13 medals at just the 2012 London Olympics, six of them gold.

I’ve been having a think about our new wave of sports stars.

In 2006 I was involved in a project to select New Zealand’s top 100 sports history-makers.

The 100 finally chosen by the panel of eight covered more than 100 years of New Zealand sport. The top 10 we came up with were Peter Snell (athletics) 1, Edmund Hillary (mountaineering) 2, Richard Hadlee (cricket) 3, Colin Meads (rugby) 4, John Walker (athletics) 5, Jack Lovelock (athletics) 6, Danyon Loader (swimming) 7, Bob Charles (golf) 8, Yvette Williams (athletics) 9, Arthur Lydiard (athletics) 10.

Others who might be of interest included Russell Coutts (yachting) 19, Michael Campbell (golf) 20, Mark Todd (equestrian) 21, Jonah Lomu (rugby) 22, Sarah Ulmer (cycling) 23, Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell (rowing) 43, Irene van Dyk (netball) 53, Stephen Fleming (cricket) 59.

It is incredible how much the sports scene has changed in just the few years since that voting took place.

A top 100 now would certainly include Valerie Adams (athletics), Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, Mahe Drysdale (rowing) and Richie McCaw (rugby). Others who would be difficult to omit would be Sophie Pascoe (disabled swimming), Ryan Nelsen (football), Alison Shanks (cycling), Hayden Roulston (cycling), Bevan Docherty (triathlon), Daniel Carter (rugby), Nick Willis (athletics), Lisa Carrington (canoeing), Val Smith (bowls), Jo Edwards (bowls), Daniel Vettori (cricket) and coaches Graham Henry (rugby), Ricki Herbert (football) and Ruth Aitken (netball).

In addition, the Evers-Swindell sisters would have a stronger case after their exciting Olympic gold medal in 2008 and Todd would have strengthened his case after his unlikely comeback in his 50s to the top of three-day evening. Two for the near future would be Lydia Ko (golf) and Steve Adams (basketball).

Even our original top 10, which was full of legends, would surely look different. Val Adams, with her two Olympic golds, four world titles and three Commonwealth Games golds, would have to find a place, and could McCaw and the Bond-Murray combination be omitted?

I suppose the key words were ‘‘history makers’’. Who has been more of a history-maker: Meads or McCaw? Perhaps McCaw, with his record number of tests and captaining the All Blacks to a World Cup triumph, shades the great Pinetree. Similarly, Yvette Williams or Val Adams? Are Adams’ gold medals just too much to ignore?

Does the Bond-Murray combination, superb though it is, have the historymaking element of a Hillary, Lovelock or Lydiard?

My top 10 now would be Snell 1, Hillary 2, Adams 3, Hadlee 4, Walker 5, Lovelock 6, Loader 7, McCaw 8, Charles 9, Lydiard 10.

Let the arguments begin. Golden Val: Valerie Adams’ Commonwealth Games gold medal in Glasgow this year is just one of many triumphs that make her one of our all-time best. Photo: Getty Images