KEY POINTS:
Funding agency Sparc has been coy about predicting this country's medal haul at the Beijing Olympics. Such is the consequence of an embarrassingly optimistic forecast for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
Such, also, is its awareness that failure to achieve benchmarks raises as many questions about our
high-performance centres as our athletes.
Team mentor Sarah Ulmer has no such qualms, however. She reckons these could be New Zealand's best Olympics, if potential is matched by performance.
She is right. As New Zealanders settle back to watch the 29th Games of the modern era unfold, it is comforting to know their team boast a wealth of competitors ranked either world champions or among the international elite.
The number is significantly better than that in Athens four years ago. Improving on the five medals won there seems almost a formality.
The eight gold medals won at Los Angeles in 1984, when the Games were boycotted by most Eastern bloc nations, is unlikely to be bettered. But there seems a fair chance that the country's best overall medal haul, 13 at Seoul in 1988, could be threatened.
Melbourne, however, taught the dangers of over-optimism. Equally, the most difficult gold medal to claim is that expected to be won. Peter Snell was under far greater pressure and had to be mentally tougher in Tokyo in 1964 than in Rome four years earlier, when he snuck up on the world as a virtual unknown.
An extra burden, therefore, falls on single sculler Mahe Drysdale, shot-putter Valerie Vili, double scullers Rob Waddell and Nathan Twaddle and BMX rider Sarah Walker.
Others favoured for medals in the rowing and cycling squads, and the likes of triathlete Bevan Docherty, boardsailor Tom Ashley and swimmer Moss Burmester, have merely to worry about defeating rivals who, generally, have the benefit of the very best of funding and training facilities.
And, of course, in the case of Burmester, there is the problem posed by the sheer talent of Michael Phelps, who is chasing an unprecedented eight gold medals and is likely to be the dominant figure of these Games.
Another major feature is expected to be the sight of China topping the medal tally for the first time. Not only has it home advantage, which, historically, boosts a medal tally by 10 to 15 per cent, and a talent base of 1.3 billion people, but it is seeing the fruits of a state-run sports system that has been in place for 15 years.
To China's traditional dominance of table tennis, badminton and diving will be added strong showings in the likes of cycling, rowing, shooting, women's weightlifting and boxing. A Chinese pair, for example, loom as a major obstacle to Caroline and Georgina Evers- Swindells' bid to reclaim their double-sculling crown.
China's ascendancy will come at the expense of the United States. Fewer tears will be shed over this following the American cycling team's donning of face masks as they arrived at Beijing airport.
Pollution will clearly present difficulties on some days of competition but this was taking precautions to ludicrous extremes. It also smacked of disrespect for their hosts and not a little hypocrisy. Had no one reminded the Americans of the pollution-related difficulties experienced by the likes of Arthur Parkin, the captain of the New Zealand hockey team, at their very own Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984?
In terms of population, the odds on topping the medal table are very much on China's side. New Zealand's ambition is far more modest. But every one of its medals will involve defying those odds. Success, therefore, will be all the sweeter.
