The New Zealand national netball team,commonly known as the Silver Ferns,represent New Zealand in international netball. The team take their nickname from the Silver Tree Fern,which is an emblem for many New Zealand sports teams. The Silver Ferns were formed in 1938 as a representative New Zealand team to tour Australia. To date,they have been one of the most dominant national netball teams in the world,along with Australia,and have a winning record against most other netball nations. The Silver Ferns are current world champions and ranked second in the INF World Rankings,behind Australia.
World Netball,previously known as the International Netball Federation and the International Federation of Netball Associations,is the worldwide governing body for Netball. The INF was created in 1960 and is responsible for world rankings,maintaining the rules for netball and organising the Netball World Cup and Netball at the Commonwealth Games
Dame Yvette Winifred Corlett was a New Zealand track-and-field athlete who was the first woman from her country to win an Olympic gold medal and to hold the world record in the women's long jump. Williams was named "Athlete of the Century" on the 100th anniversary of Athletics New Zealand,in 1987.
Belinda Louise Colling is a former New Zealand international netball and women's basketball representative.
Kayla Marie Whitelock is a New Zealand field hockey player,and former captain of the New Zealand women's national field hockey team. She has competed in four Olympic Games,three Commonwealth Games and two Hockey World Cups. She was named on the FIH's All-Star Team in 2010 and was Hockey New Zealand's player of the year in 2012.
Jean Hurring was a swimmer from New Zealand. She won a bronze medal in the 100 m backstroke at the 1952 Summer Olympics.
Jodi Anne Brown is a retired New Zealand netball player. Brown was a member of the New Zealand national netball team,the Silver Ferns from 2002 to 2015,taking time off in between those periods due to injury and pregnancy,earning 61 caps. She has also played elite domestic netball in New Zealand for 13 years,and has signed with the Southern Steel for 2014. She played for the Central Pulse in 2015 and was getting set to play her final season in 2016 before she injured her ACL in the preseason and decided to retire from domestic netball after she had retired from international netball in 2015. In 2015,Jodi began co-coaching at St Hilda's Collegiate,Dunedin with the year nine A team. She has since followed this team through the years,which included a devastating 1 point loss in the SISS final. In 2018,Brown coached the St Hilda's Senior A team and also coached the Dunedin U17 team to 11th place at Nationals.
Robert Nathan Twaddle is a former New Zealand rower and Olympic medallist. He competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing,in the coxless pair rowing with his partner George Bridgewater and won a bronze medal.
Catherine Anne Grant Sadleir is a sports executive and former synchronized swimmer.
Kelly Brazier is a New Zealand rugby union player. She plays flyhalf,centre or fullback in New Zealand,Canterbury and Canadian club Edmonton Clansmen RFC.
Netball has never been played at the Summer Olympics,but its federation has been recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC),since 1995 after a twenty-year period of lobbying. The netball community sees netball's absence at the Olympic Games as a hindrance to the global growth of the game,depriving it of media attention and funding. The IOC requires a high geographical scope for inclusion in the Olympics,but netball is mostly played in Commonwealth countries. When the IOC recognized netball's federation,it opened up sources of funds that the global netball community had not been able to access before,including the (IOC),national Olympic committees and sports organisations,and state and federal governments.
The Lonsdale Cup is awarded annually by the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) to a New Zealand athlete who has demonstrated the most outstanding contribution to an Olympic or Commonwealth sport during the previous year.
New Zealand competed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow,from 23 July to 3 August 2014. It was the nation's 20th appearance at the Commonwealth Games,having competed at every Games since their inception in 1930. The New Zealand Olympic Committee registered the complete team on 8 July 2014,with 239 athletes competing at the Games across all 17 sports. The team was reduced to 238 prior to the opening ceremony,after judoka Patti Grogan withdrew due to an unspecified health issue.
Elizabeth Mary Nicholl is a British sports administrator and former netball player. She served as chief executive of UK Sport from 2010–19,and is the current president of World Netball.
Gina Crampton is a New Zealand netball international. She was a member of the New Zealand teams that won the 2019 Netball World Cup and the 2021 Constellation Cup. Crampton was also a member of the Southern Steel teams that won the 2017 and 2018 ANZ Premierships. She was named the 2016 New Zealand ANZ Championship Player of the Year and the 2019 ANZ Premiership Player of the Year. Crampton has captained both Southern Steel and New Zealand. Since 2021 she has played for Northern Stars.
Jacqueline Barron is a New Zealand sports administrator and school principal.
Joan Frances Harnett-Kindley is a New Zealand former netball player and real estate agent. She began playing for Canterbury's Sacred Hart team in 1960 and was first selected to play for the country's national squad in 1963. Harnett played in three editions of the World Netball Championships in 1963,1967 and 1971 and was named player of the tournament of the 1967 competition that New Zealand won. She stopped playing internationally in 1971 and retired three years later. Harnett played in 116 international matches and was captain for 45 of them. took up a career in the real estate industry from 1972 to about 2007,serving as a member of various committees and was an inaugural member of the Real Estate Authority. Harnett is an inductee of the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame and was named a Sporting Legend of Canterbury in 2007.
Myrtle Muir was the first coach of the New Zealand national netball team in 1938. She was one of the founders of and later president of what was at the time known as the New Zealand Basketball Association,from 1932 to 1949. Until recently,little was known about Muir's origins,but recent research has discovered that she was descended from a Chinese settler who worked in the Otago Gold Fields.
Sheryl Lorene Dawson is a New Zealand netball administrator and coach. She was president of the International Netball Federation from 1999 to 2003.
New Zealand competed at the 2022 Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham,England,from 28 July to 8 August 2022. It is New Zealand's 22nd appearance at the Commonwealth Games,having competed at every Games since their inception in 1930. New Zealand finished fifth on the medal table,winning a total of 50 medals,20 of which were gold. This makes these games New Zealand's best performance ever in terms of gold medals,beating the 17 won in Auckland at the 1990 Commonwealth Games,but third overall in terms of total medals,with 50,behind the 58 in 1990,and the 53 at the Games also in Auckland.
