Games roster tallies under 200

Kayla Sharland models the training uniform the women's hockey team will wear in New Delhi. Photo / Greg Bowker

For the first time since Victoria 1994, New Zealand will send a team of fewer than 200 athletes to a Commonwealth Games.

The naming of the table tennis, tennis and hockey teams yesterday brought the number of New Delhi-bound competitors to 193 - 56 fewer than the 249 in Melbourne four years ago.

The 1994 Games were the last without hockey.

At the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Games New Zealand had 217 athletes.

There were 200 in Manchester four years later.

The only other 200-plus team was in Auckland in 1990 with 224.

The team to New Delhi will be accompanied by 103 support staff.

In changes from the Melbourne schedule of sports, basketball and triathlon have been omitted, archery and wrestling re-introduced, and tennis included for the first time.

Yesterday, the tennis and table tennis teams were named first, then NZ Olympic Committee general secretary Barry Maister announced the 16-player men's and women's hockey teams.

It was a poignant moment for Maister, a former 10-year hockey international and member of the 1976 Olympic gold medal-winning team, as it was the last such announcement for him before he retires at the end of the year after 10 years with the Olympic Committee.

Maister has been appointed New Zealand's 11th member of the International Olympic Committee, a role he is looking forward to.

Some of the non-competitive team uniforms were revealed at yesterday's announcement, with hockey players Kayla Sharland, Emily Naylor, Dean Couzins and Phil Burrows - who all played in Melbourne in 2006 - as models.

Maister pointed out that the range of casual and training wear had been designed to honour Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who are being used as the inspiration for the team under the "29028" banner, representing the height in feet of Mt Everest.

This is also super-imposed as a silhouette on the uniforms, which also sport a silver fern.

Women's hockey coach Mark Hager modelled the team tracksuit - something he felt proud to do.

It is ironic that Hager, one of Australia's greatest hockey players, will go to his first Commonwealth Games as a New Zealander.

"I retired after the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and the first time hockey was played at a Commonwealth Games was in Kuala Lumpur in 1998," said Hager, who won Olympic bronze.

Formal team wear is supplied by Barkers Clothing, and the opening ceremony uniform will be revealed once the team are in New Delhi.