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New Zealand's Many World-Beaters
New Zealand! — that South Pacific country of just over four million people;
HOME of -
America's Cup from 1997-2003 (and of the skipper who then won it for the Swiss);
Other Teams:
Oscar winners in 2004 for best picture, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Barrie Osborne;
Oscar winners in 2004 for best art direction, Grant Major, Dan Hennah, and Alan Lee;
Oscar winners in 2004 for best visual effects, Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook, and Alex Funke;
Oscar winners in 2004 for best original song, Fran walsh, Howard Shore, and Annie Lennox;
Oscar winners in 2004 for best adapted screenplay, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson;
Oscar winners in 2004 for best costume design, Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor;
Oscar winners in 2004 for best make-up, Richard Taylor and Peter King;
Oscar winners in 2004 for best sound mixing, Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges, Hammond Peek;
Trans-Atlantic Rowing Challenge winners, in 1997 (Rob Hamill and the late Phil Stubbs, in record-breaking time) and 2003 (Kevin Biggar and James Fitzgerald, also in record-breaking time);
Men's Softball (three years in a row) and Women's Rugby and Rugby Sevens world champion teams;
First women's world doubles squash champions, Philippa Beams and Leilani Rorani (nee Joyce);
World 2002 Basketball semi-finalists (who beat USA);
Record-breaking 2002 World Double Sculls champions, Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell, who won again in 2003;
2003 World Wheelchair Games triples gold medallists Mark Noble, Peter Home, and Barry Winks;
Other World-beating Individuals:
Valerie Adams, 2002 world junior shot put champion and Commonwealth Games silver medallist;
Terenzo Bozzone, 2001 and 2002 world junior duathlon and 2002 and 2003 world junior triathlon champion;
Lynette Brooky, Women's 1998 Austrian Open and 2002 and 2003 French Open Golf champion;
Golfer Michael Campbell, twice winner of the Heineken Classic, 2002 European Open Champion, and 2003 Irish Open champion;
Sir Bob Charles, 1963 British Open Golf champion (and four times New Zealand Open champion);
Wade Cunningham, 2003 winner of World Karting Championship;
Dame Susan Devoy, four times Women's world squash champion;
Scott Dixon, Indycar champion;
David Fagan, five times world shearing champion, including 2003 (the Welsh call him "King David");
Ben Fouhy, world canoeing champion;
Steve Gurney, leader of 2002 Eco Primal Quest winners - see http://www.bikewise.co.nz/adventures/smartwool.asp for detail;
Peter Jackson, Oscar winner in 2004 for best director (and joint winner for best picture and best adapted screenplay)
Melissa Moon, World Mountain Running champion woman 2002 and 2003;
Ross Norman, onetime world squash champion (beating Jahangir Khan);
Carol Owens, Women's 2000 and 2003 World Open Squash champion and "World No 1" in 2003;
Craig Perks, 2002 winner of golf's "fifth" major, the Players' Championship;
Bernie Portenski, who on 14 Feb 2004 cut 8 seconds off the world 54-years 5,000-metre track record with 18 min 17.47sec; not by any means her first record of that sort;
Rex Redden, World Kick Boxing Federation Welterweight Champion, November 2002 and December 2003;
Leilani Rorani (nee Joyce), Women's 2000 British Open Squash champion (with doubles success noted above);
Jamie Selkirk, Oscar winner in 2004 for best film editing;
Howard Shore, Oscar winner in 2004 for best original score (and joint winner for best original song);
Equestrian Mark Todd, "Horseman of the Century" [i.e. the 20th Century] with two Olympic gold medals;
Jonathan Wyatt, 2002 world mountain running champion;
Peter Jackson, and associates, of "Lord of the Rings" (the third part of which had its red carpet World Premiere in New Zealand on 1 December 2003);
Keisha Castle-Hughes, youngest-ever Oscar nominee;
Richard Pearse of South Canterbury, who flew a plane (for about 140 metres) on or about 31st March 1903, ie months before the Wright brothers did, and much further (though with slightly less control, which can be the only reason he doesn't get more credit);
Lord Cooke of Thorndon, longest-serving member of the United Kingdom Privy Council Judicial Committee, valedictorily described (as reported at [2002] 2 NZLR 586) in this way by the President, Lord Bingham of Cornhill:
"Happily we have been privileged to welcome him on very many occasions ... and we have valued more than I can say his erudition which has marked him out as one of the outstanding jurists of the common law world; and we have valued also his long and broad experience, his humane and radical vision, his commitment and his youthful zest for the case in hand. ... We've enormously valued him as a colleague, never backward in forming or expressing opinions but never seeking to overbear or dominate as a man of lesser quality with his record of achievement might have been tempted to do. ... we offer him our congratulations on his birthday yesterday, our profound thanks for all that he has done, our continuing good wishes and our recognition that the law is yet another field in which the southern hemisphere has proved itself a world beater."
BIRTHPLACE of:
Everest-conqueror Ed Hillary;
Pulitzer Prize winner Peter Arnett;
Oscar-winners Peter Jackson and Russell Crowe;
Lucy Lawless ("Xena");
Several Nobel Prize winners, including atom-splitter Ernest Rutherford;
First country to have registered nurses and give women the vote;
Location of the world's steepest suburban street (Baldwin Street in Dunedin) (according to "Guinness");
"Very, very, very close friends" with the United States, according to US Secretary of State Colin Powell on 27 March 2002. Approval continued during Iraq reconstruction;
Highest per-capita contributor to international peacekeeping in 2003.
Is that above average?
Please email or write to me if you want more or would like to add some...
David Carrad, who tried to improve the world
A bit of genealogy
Plimmerton, Porirua City
New Zealand has the edge!
Send E-Mail to: robinp@xtra.co.nz
Copyright © 2006 Robin Forlonge Patterson. All Rights Reserved