85 year-old weightlifter Maurice Crow honoured
1111 New Zealand Olympians will be awarded uniquely numbered Olympic pins this week as the project to name, number and order the men and women who have represented New Zealand at the world’s greatest sporting event is completed. The Olympians also receive a commemorative certificate signed by IOC President Jacques Rogg.
Marking the conclusion of the four-year long project and commemorating Olympic Week 2009 an Olympians Wall of Honour has been unveiled at the Olympic Museum in Wellington.
In total, 580 of the 1111 New Zealand Olympians or members of their family will be present at one of the seventeen functions being held around New Zealand this week. Of the 1111 Olympians, only nine are yet to be located.
86 year-old Harold Nelson who represented New Zealand in athletics (5,000m and 10,000m) at the London Olympic Games is New Zealand’s oldest living Olympian. He was a member of the seven-strong team that travelled by ship to the 1948 Games. Three members of the London team are still living. 84-year old Ngaire Galloway (nee Lane, swimming) and 85 year-old Maurice Crow (weightlifting). Their pins will be numbered 52(Crow), 56 (Galloway) and 57 (Nelson).
Crow (born 26.05.1924) started in 56 kg in 1948 Olympics. He was ranked 8th by 272.5 kg (77.5 kg press, 85 kg snatch, 110 kg clean and jerk)
Olympic Day today (23 June) marks 115 years since the founding of the modern Olympic Games by Pierre de Coubertin and is a day on which communities around the world celebrate the Olympic Movement in a spirit of excellence, friendship and respect.
The full list of Olympians by number can be viewed at www.olympic.org.nz and are ordered alphabetically by games.
