It's been a bumper year of standout performances from New Zealand athletes. Photos / Photosport
The Herald selects our New Zealand sporting heroes of the year.
World champions at last. The Black Caps won the inaugural World Test Championship in June, after producing a stunning sixth and final day to beat India by eight wickets in Southampton.
It was a sensational showing as the Black Caps defied the odds yet again, claiming New Zealand's first ICC title since victories in the Champions Trophy and Women's World Cup in 2000.
With India starting the day at 64-2, leading by 32 runs, victory required a stunning bowling performance, and they produced just that - skittling India for 170, and chasing down their target of 139 with 7.1 overs to spare.
It seemed fitting that veterans Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor led the winning chase. Taylor whipped a delivery from Mohammed Shami to the square leg boundary, and New Zealand's journey was complete.
They then had a chance to make it two world titles in a year when they booked a spot in the Twenty20 World Cup final after a thrilling semifinal win over England. Unfortunately, Australia proved to be the final hurdle yet again, denying the Black Caps as they appeared in their third straight ICC final following the 2019 ODI Super Over heartbreak.
Regardless of the T20 result in the UAE, Gary Stead's side still finish 2021 as World Champions.
Carrington became New Zealand's greatest Olympian at the Tokyo Olympics, overcoming a seemingly impossible schedule to take gold in the K1 200m, K1 500m and K2 500m (with Caitlin Regal), increasing her overall tally to six medals (five gold and one bronze).
Since the 2012 Olympics Carrington has been involved in 29 per cent of the 17 gold medals achieved by this country.
"Learning from Rio, you might have the capability to have great races but to actually execute it and do it is another thing," she told Sky after her K1 500m gold. "It's taken me five years to have that courage to get back out there and do something that is really scary and hurts a lot.
"I hate it, but I love it."
By winning her third gold in Tokyo, Ohope's finest took her Olympic medal haul to six, one more than fellow kayakers Ian Ferguson and Paul MacDonald, and equestrian Mark Todd. Her five gold medals also pushes her ahead of Ferguson.
The numbers are fascinating but tell only a fraction of the story. The numbers don't tell of the vice-like grip she appears to have over the field; control gained through an astonishing ability to hit top speed so much faster than her rivals.
The propulsive forces she generates in her first 10 strokes are so superior to others they are forced into a constant catch-up battle. Kayaking well is a simple enough premise – maximum propulsive force and minimum drag being the keys – but Carrington has turned it into an art form from the moment she gets to the start line.
Three months after AC75 boats first took to the water in competition off the coast of Auckland, after the World Series, the Christmas Cup, the Prada Cup and, finally, the America's Cup; Team New Zealand emerged triumphant to claim the coveted trophy for the fourth time.
Was it ever in doubt? Maybe for a moment against rival and 2013 TNZ conqueror Jimmy Spithill when Team New Zealand trailed by 2400m in race eight. After a tight start to the America's Cup Match saw Luna Rossa and TNZ exchange blows for the first six races, the home team won four races in a row in the Waitematā Harbour to thrill thousands of onlookers in the aquatic stadium.
Led by skipper Peter Burling, the team proved to be more than a match for Luna Rossa, despite racing taking place almost exclusively in wind conditions that were expected to favour the Italian boat.
Even within the eventual domination of the series, it was a roller-coaster ride of strategic success, emotion and luck. It included one of the craziest days in the history of the America's Cup, an impossibly tense and bizarre race eight when the breeze died, causing both teams to fall off their foils for long periods. The end result was that Team New Zealand won the second race by more than 2,500 metres, after trailing by a similar margin to take a 5-3 lead in the series. It proved the turning point as Burling lifted the Auld Mug a few days later for the second time.
New Zealand certainly made a splash in the water at the Tokyo Olympics as the rower team forged one of the greatest hours of our country's sporting history as part of an extraordinary Games campaign.
On July 31, just after midday, Emma Twigg shrugged off the hard-luck of her past by blitzing the field for a single sculls gold. She then sat back and watched the women's eight claim silver before the men's eight upset the odds to beat much more fancied rivals for gold.
That magnificent trio of results came a day after Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler won New Zealand's first gold in the women's coxless pairs and after the women's double sculls pair of Brooke Donoghue and Hannah Osborne earlier claimed silver.
All up, the team claimed three gold and two silver medals, accounting for a quarter of all New Zealand's medals in Tokyo.
Hamish Bond, who has now won three Olympic golds after rowing as part of the men's eight in this edition, summed up the team's success.
So good he appears on the list twice. The Black Caps may have lost the second test to India in Mumbai ending their impressive 10-test undefeated streak but it will go down in history as one of the most remarkable individual bowling efforts of all-time.
In just his 11th test, Patel became the third bowler to take 10 wickets in a test innings, joining Jim Laker and Anil Kumble, and he was the first to do so away from home.
If there's anything that can make 10 wickets in an innings somehow even more special, it's doing it in your birthplace. Born in Mumbai and raised in the city until he left for New Zealand aged eight, this test had been circled on Patel's calendar for a long time, as a chance to return home and play in front of some of his family for the first time.
They were at the forefront of his thoughts when reflecting on what his incredible accomplishment meant.
"It's brilliant for me, not only me but my family – my mum and dad and all their support, my wife and all her support.
"It's never easy being a cricketer, you're spending a lot of time away from home and to be able to come back home to Mumbai and Wankhede and to be able to produce something like that is quite special."
He finished with the figures of 47.5-12-119-10 and then added four more wickets in the second innings for the greatest ever match figures against India. Ajaz 14-225. Rest of the New Zealand bowlers 3-376.
To all the athletes and sports teams that competed in 2021 despite Covid restrictions. The likes of the Warriors, Breakers, Phoenix who spent their seasons in Australia and the All Blacks, Black Caps, White Ferns and Black Ferns who ventured into the Northern Hemisphere and went through MIQ on the way home. As well as individual athletes who repeatedly endured MIQ everytime they represented their nation.
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