New Zealand athletes have won a total of 143 medals, with 137 won at the Summer Games and six at the Winter Games. The most successful sports has been rowing with 29 medals, with athletics second with 26 medals. Prior to the 2022 Winter Olympics, the 140 medals won by New Zealand put the country at number 32 on the all-time Olympic Games medal table for total number of medals and number 24 when weighted by medal type.
Following the 2020 Summer Olympics, 1519 competitors had represented New Zealand at Olympic Games. Harry Kerr is considered[1] the first Kiwi Olympian[2] and Adrian Blincoe the 1000th.[3] On 11 June 2009 it was reported that of the 1111 Olympians to that date, 114 were deceased and the whereabouts of 21 were unknown.[3]
By 25 June 2009 only 9 Olympians had not been located.[4] There are no living Kiwi Olympians from before the 1948 Olympics in London.[3]
Due to its location in the South Pacific and distance from the early Olympic host cities in Europe and North America, New Zealanders needed to endure long sea voyages to participate. New Zealand sent its first independent team to the VII Olympiad in 1920, comprising two runners, a rower, and a 15-year-old swimmer. Prior to 1920, three New Zealanders won medals competing for Australasian teams in 1908 and 1912. Since the advent of international jet air travel in the 1950s, and the greater number of Olympic sports, the size of New Zealand Olympic teams has increased substantially.
New Zealand has had a much smaller participation in the Winter Olympics, owing to its oceanic climate and Southern Hemisphere location requiring athletes to peak in the middle of the New Zealand summer. The nation did not assemble their first Winter Olympic team until 1952. In 1988 the team included bobsleighers; the first entry in a winter sport other than alpine skiing.
Four years later in 2022, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott also won New Zealand's first ever Winter Olympics gold medal, in the women's slopestyle. Nico Porteous later won New Zealand’s second ever Winter Olympics gold medal, again in the men’s ski half pipe.
The New Zealand Olympic Committee records all athletes chosen for the Olympics, numbered sequentially. Harry Kerr is identified as "New Zealand Olympian: 1".