KEY POINTS:
ATHLETICS
Let's start at the top. Shotputter Valerie Vili, current world champion, will start favourite for gold, and there's not many of those wearing the silver fern this year. She has seven other New Zealanders for company _ in the field events former world champion discus thrower Beatrice
Faumuina and javelin thrower Stuart Farquhar; on the track 200m sprinter James Dolphin, 1500m contender Nick Willis and 5000m pair Adrian Blincoe and Kimberley Smith. Smith is likely to run the 10,000m but has also qualified in the 5000m _ a double attempt is a possibility.
Marathoner Nina Rillstone is going while Liza Hunter-Galvan's appeal against her non-selection for the marathon was heard by the Sports Tribunal yesterday. No decision is expected until next week.
Six athletes have a dispensation to produce a Games-worthy performance by the end of June. Athletics New Zealand won't say who they are, although one is understood to be decathlete Brent Newdick.
BADMINTON
Three players were confirmed on Thursday, singles exponent North Harbour's John Moody, and mixed pair Craig Cooper of Waikato and Auckland's Renee Flavell. The preparation is likely to include a stint training in Asia. The region is a stronghold of the sport, and the workload will be high quality.
BASKETBALL
The women are going, the men probably not. The Tall Blacks have to qualify through a difficult repechage tournament in Athens next month. The top three teams at the July 14-20 tournament progress to Beijing, and New Zealand are up against it with the likes of Germany, Brazil and Greece also looking to make it.
The Tall Blacks have home and away games against Australia _ at North Shore on June 26, in Melbourne two days later _ three games in Canada from July 1-5 and a four-team tournament in Slovenia from July 8-10 as preparation.
The Tall Ferns are going as Oceania qualifiers _ Australia were already in the field _ and have drawn defending titleholders the United States, hosts China, Mali and two qualifiers yet to be named. They ended their European tour with a two-win, four-loss record, crashing 73-46 to the Czech Republic yesterday.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL
Men's pair Kirk Pittman and Jason Lochhead are making a play to qualify through the world circuit. They have been in Poland this week and have four grand slam events, in Berlin, Paris, Stavangar in Norway and Moscow, followed by the Olympic qualifying tournament in Marseille from July 14-20. Twenty-four spots are available. Pittman and Lochhead are not out of it but need some big wins to secure a spot.
CANOEING
Four paddlers are off to Beijing in four classes. Athens silver medallist and former world champion Ben Fouhy is in the K1 1000m; Steven Ferguson is in the K1 500m _ the event in which his father, Ian, won one of his three 1984 Olympic golds _ and teams up with Mike Walker in the K2 1000m; and Erin Taylor is in the K1 500m. She is the first woman to represent New Zealand in Olympic canoeing. There is a quiet confidence of a successful regatta.
CYCLING
Seven track riders have been named _ individual pursuiters Hayden Roulston (Ashburton) and Alison Shanks (Dunedin); team pursuiters Sam Bewley (Rotorua), Wesley Gough (Waipukurau), Marc Ryan (Timaru), Jesse Sargent (Palmerston North) and former world scratch champion Greg Henderson (Dunedin), who will ride the points race and the madison with Roulston. Shanks is also down for the women's points race.
The BMX team, making its Olympic debut, is due to be named next week. Expect world champion Sarah Walker and Marc Willers to be confirmed.
The mountainbikers are expected the following week, with Kaschi Leuchs and Rosara Joseph, just back on her bike after an injury break, tipped to win spots.
The road squad is to be named next month. Top rider Julian Dean will go and most likely two of Heath Blackgrove, Glen Chadwick and Tim Gudsell. Joanne Kiesanowski, Cath Cheatley and Joseph are tipped to make the women's road team, which is assessed on International Cycling Union ranking points.
EQUESTRIAN
New Zealand have qualified a team for the show jumping, and a team and one individual in the three-day event.
The showjumpers secured their spot by winning the Asia Pacific qualifier in Germany last June. That was followed by a seventh finish at the Nations Cup in the United States this year. They finished 11th in Athens in 2004. The four will be named later this month.
There is a shortlist for the eventing team, dominated by one M. Todd, who has made a successful late bid to get to his sixth Olympics. They, too, will be named this month. The shortlist is nine for the five places, but expect double Olympic champion Todd and his grey Gandalf to be in the quartet at the Games.
HOCKEY
Both men and women have qualified. The squads are due to be named at the end of this month. The world No 8 women _ with a solitary win and draw alongside 13 defeats this year _ head to Beijing next Tuesday for a four-nation warm-up tournament. The men, 12 wins, two losses this year and ranked No 10, left for Europe on Thursday.
ROWING
Seven crews have qualified through performances at last year's world champs _ Mahe Drysdale and Emma Twigg (single scull), George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle, and Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles (coxless pair), Nathan Cohen and Rob Waddell, and Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell (double scull), and Hamish Bond, Eric Murray, James Dallinger and Carl Meyer (coxless four).
Drysdale and the coxless four are world champions. Three other crews are making late challenges to qualify in Poznan, Poland, from June 15-18 _ a women's eight (tough task), lightweight double scullers Storm Uru and Peter Taylor (good chance) and Candice Hammond and Louise Ayling (in the frame).
SAILING
Nine will sail at Qingdao on the Chinese coast, a couple of hours' flight from Beijing: boardsailors Barbara Kendall and Tom Ashley, Finn man Dan Slater, Laser duo Jo Aleh and Andrew Murdoch, Star class combination Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams and 470 teenagers Peter Burling and Carl Evans. All will spend some time in Qingdao before the regatta starts but are doing their own thing in the leadup.
SHOOTING
No selections made yet, but the wise money is on no more than half a dozen winning selection. The process has been complicated by an appeal to the Sports Tribunal from an athlete who has not been nominated. It is hoped names are with the Olympic selectors some time next week.
SOCCER
Both men's and women's teams have qualified for the first time. In the women's case, it was a unanimous, if contentious call by the New Zealand Olympic Committee board. They have failed to meet New Zealand selection standards, but passed International Federation requirements as Oceania qualifying winners. They have drawn Japan, Norway and the United States.
They are off to Korea for the Peace Queen Cup from June 14-21, which should offer stiff pre-Olympic preparation with games against South Korea, Argentina and Canada.
The men's is an under-23 tournament. Coach Stu Jacobs can choose three over-age players and must perm from out of Ryan Nelsen (Blackburn Rovers), Chris Killen (Celtic), Simon Elliott (formerly with Fulham, now unattached), and Phoenix pair Shane Smeltz and Tony Lochhead. The men go into camp in Wellington today, have a week off at the end of June and head overseas for five games in early July.
Both squads of 18 are expected to be named at the start of July.
SWIMMING
Twelve swimmers to go to China, seven having qualified for individual events.
Moss Burmester is in the 100m and 200m butterfly, in the latter of which he won Commonwealth Games gold in Melbourne two years ago, and finished fourth in the world last year. He appeals as New Zealand's best medal hope.
The other individuals are Corney Swanepoel, also in the 100m; Glenn Snyders has achieved the 100m and 200m breaststroke times; Melissa Ingram is in the 100m and 200m backstroke; Helen Norfolk the 200m and 400m individual medley; Dean Kent in the 200m individual medley; and Liz Coster in the 100m backstroke, for which she's ranked in the top 10 this year.
Five swimmers are in relays _ Daniel Bell, Cameron Gibson join the 4 x 100m medley quartet; Lauren Boyle, Natasha Hind and Hayley Palmer are in the 4 x 200m freestyle relay. A men's 4 x 100m freestyle relay team might be added at the end of June. Four places are available. New Zealand have the fourth fastest time so sit on the cusp. Norfolk and Kent are New Zealand's first three-time swimming Olympians. The team was selected from the national trials at Waitakere in March.
Toronto-based Dunedin synchronised sisters Nina and Lisa Daniels were confirmed late last year after putting up an 88.083 score at the Chinese Open last September. They are the first synchro team to represent New Zealand at the Olympics since the Sadleir sisters in 1984.
TAEKWONDO
Three representatives, 80kg class athlete Matthew Beach (a British-born 30-year-old who won gold at the Beijing selection competition last year), Robyn Cheong (in the under 57kg division she was ranked No 16 in the world last year and won the Beijing selection competition gold) and Logan Campbell (in the under 68kg division, and a winner of the gold at last year's Oceania championships).
TENNIS
New Zealand's only possibility is Marina Erakovic in the women's singles. She is currently ranked No 80, but will bump up to about No 70 after her second-round effort at the French Open last week. Only four players per country are allowed, which helps her case. She should know by Thursday. If she misses on direct entry, six wildcard spots are available.
TRIATHLON
Six athletes have been chosen _ Sam Warriner, Debbie Tanner and Andrea Hewitt, and Athens silver medallist Bevan Docherty, Kris Gemmell and Shane Reed, who will line up against his US-representative brother Matthew on August 19. Hewitt and Reed got the final spots in March, chosen at the discretion of the national selectors rather than having produced a direct entry qualifying performance.
WEIGHTLIFTING
Two lifters are going, 25-year-old Aucklander Richard Patterson (77kg) and Mark Spooner (69kg), a 23-year-old Auckland boatbuilder. Patterson was fourth at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games two years ago and Spooner sixth. Both are competing at their first Olympics.
* New Zealand will have no representation in 12 sports on the Beijing programme _ archery, baseball, boxing, fencing, gymnastics, handball, judo, modern pentathlon, softball, table tennis, volleyball and wrestling.
