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The Summer Olympics were first held in Athens in 1896. Because of high costs and huge travel distances, however, New Zealanders did not compete until the 1908 Olympiad held in London. Even then, New Zealanders competed under the banner of Australasia.
The first official New Zealand team competed in 1920 at the 7th Olympiad in Antwerp, Belgium. New Zealanders have competed at every Summer Olympiad since. In 1980, an official team was not entered for the Moscow games, however some New Zealanders did compete as individuals.
For news of the games New Zealanders, generally, had to rely on radio for live coverage and local flavour. It wasn’t until the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch that New Zealand television began to produce its own coverage of sports events of this scale. Before then the NZBC relied on international material.
The only really 'New Zealand' presence or perspective of the Olympics, on film, was recorded by home movie makers. The films in this selection show New Zealander’s records of the Olympic Games – from Berlin in 1936 to Tokyo in 1964. Capturing the same significant moments in New Zealand sport as television reports, these home movies have something extra, the atmosphere and delight felt by a spectator in the stands.
With thanks to: the Greenslade, Boustridge, Thorn and Archer families and the Port Chalmers Museum.
How we found these results
These results were found by using the Catalogue’s Advanced
Search function. To
get started, we chose Film and Video from the
‘Media’ menu. Then we selected Amateur
from the ‘All Film Categories’ field. Finally, we typed the words
Olympic Games
into the ‘Description’ field. |
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