The legacy of New Zealand’s golden hour of Olympic glory – that blessed moment when Sir Peter Snell and Sir Murray Halberg bagged golds in the 800m and 5000m at the 1960 Rome Olympics – runs deep through New Zealand’s sporting consciousness. One gold in a blue-riband event wouldbe merely (as the hoary old cliché goes) punching above our weight. Two? That’s dominating the world.
Yet the Halberg legacy runs even deeper.
In 1958, Sir Murray won the New Zealand Sportsman’s Trophy (which had been around since 1949) and, when that award was shelved with the death of the NZ Sportsman magazine in 1960, he knew how such an accolade could boost a young athlete’s hopes. He brought the event back to life in 1963, with the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation.
Today, they’re simply called the Halberg Awards, and it’s the routine celebration of excellence and endeavour that is the great man’s most profound legacy. The awards that bear his name cover all codes in the New Zealand sporting firmament. The Halberg Awards have normalised celebrating sporting excellence – and in a nation more than a little bit obsessed with rugby, they’ve done a fine job of broadening our attention.
