Olympic rowers top list of Games’ highlights for Kiwis

Colmar Brunton poll finds our favourite Olympics moments.

Kiwis love a dark horse. Someone who quietly comes from behind the scenes, gives it their all and unexpectedly achieves greatness.

A recent Colmar Brunton poll of over 1000 Kiwis voted Lisa Carrington’s and Mahe Drysdale’s gold medal wins as the best medal moments of the 2012 London Olympics Games, and rowing the top sporting highlight.

Nearly one fifth (19%) of respondents voted both Carrington’s and Drysdale’s wins as the top NZ medal moments followed by 17% for rowing men’s pair Hamish Bond and Eric Murray.

When asked why they voted Carrington’s win the best, 25% said it was because she put in the effort and 17% put it down to her great smile.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was thanks to that winning smile that Lisa’s medal moment was rated highest among males.

As for Drysdale, respondents said that after his illness and bad luck at previous Olympic Games, he deserved to win.

The poll also found that the biggest Olympic Games disappointment was Ostapchuk’s drug cheating scandal that initially saw the defeat of our heroine, Valerie Adams, out of the shotput gold medal.

Other interesting results that came out of the Colmar Brunton's Omnibus survey include:
·         21 percent of New Zealander’s who responded felt that no sports currently run at the Olympics should be removed, although, those aged between 50 to 69 years of age felt tennis should not be an Olympic Sport.

·         28 percent of Kiwi’s who responded believe that no other sports should be included in the Olympics, however, the inclusion of Sevens at the Olympics was high among 60 to 69 year olds.