Sporting achievements: Unsung heroes of the year

Dan Shirley and Danish-born Sara Runesten-Petersen

In a year when New Zealand badminton embarked on a dodgy publicity gimmick by suggesting the national team should be called the Black Cocks, a man called Shirley and a sheila called Sara provided the best publicity of all - by winning New Zealand's first medal in a badminton world championships.

Dan Shirley and Danish-born Sara Runesten-Petersen won a bronze in the mixed doubles in Los Angeles, defeating a Korean pairing in the quarter-finals, and took the sport to a new level in New Zealand.

While their triumph passed largely unremarked, it shouldn't have. Minor sports have a perpetual struggle for funds and attention and the mixed doubles pairing have set themselves up for the Commonwealth Games next year. Not to mention showing up their own association for having to refer to genitals to get noticed.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY