New Zealand Olympic Committee

New Zealand Olympic Committee

New Zealand Olympic Committee logo
Country/Region	New Zealand
Code	NZL
Created	1911
Recognized	1919
Continental Association	ONOC
Headquarters	Auckland, New Zealand
President	Mike Stanley
Secretary General	Kereyn Smith
Website	www.olympic.org.nz

The New Zealand Olympic Committee (before 1994, The New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association) is the body in New Zealand responsible for selecting athletes to represent New Zealand in the Summer and Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games.

While a founder member of the International Olympic Committee, New Zealand did not send its own team to compete until the Games of the VI Olympiad (Antwerp 1920), though at the 1908 and 1912 Summer Olympics New Zealand and Australia competed as "Australasia". New Zealand has sent a team to every Summer Olympic Games since 1920, though only a token team of four went to the 1980 Summer Olympics at Moscow due to the boycott. New Zealand first competed at the Winter Olympics in 1952, but did not compete in the 1956 or 1964 Winter Olympics.

New Zealand has sent a team to every Commonwealth Games since the first in 1930, which was held in Canada and then called the British Empire Games. They are held every four years, in between the Olympic Games.

The NZOC (New Zealand Olympic Committee) is a member of the International Olympic Committee and the Commonwealth Games Federation.

The NZOC emblem consisting of a depiction of a silver fern (New Zealand's sporting emblem) superimposed on the Olympic Rings was created as a marketing symbol in 1979 (which was initially in all-white on a black background). It was first publicly used at an Olympic Games at the Games of the XXII Olympiad (Moscow 1980, in which observers thought that the fern was an olive branch of peace)—New Zealand competed under this flag to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It went to its current colored version in 1994.