1990-1999

1990 Finalists

Sportsman: Gary Anderson (cycling), Peter Blake (yachting), Anthony Mosse (swimming), Blyth Tait (equestrian).

Sportswoman: Susan Devoy (squash), Madonna Harris (cycling), Karen Holliday (cycling), Anna Simcic (swimming).

Team: Auckland (rugby), Steinlager Crew (yachting), Time Trial Team (cycling), Three-Day Event (equestrian).

Coach/Official: Hilton Brown (swimming), Ron Cheatley (cycling), Maurice Trapp/Bryan Williams (rugby), Kerry Clark (bowls).

Personality: Peter Blake (yachting), Millie Khan (bowls), Tania Murray (athletics), Ian Smith (cricket).

1990 Halberg Award Winner - Peter Blake

There seems hardly to have been a yacht race or a yachting trophy that Peter Blake has not won. He first gained national, and international, recognition as a 24-year-old in 1971 when he won line honours in the inaugural Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro race, and he’s been sailing and winning ever since, from Fastnet to the Sydney-Hobart to a round-Australia race. Blake won the Sportsman of the Year title in 1990 for winning line and handicap honours in the round the world race in Steinlager II, when he made an unprecedented sweep of each leg in that daunting race. In 1994, Blake and Englishman Robin Knox-Johnston set a world record for a non-stop circumnavigation of the world, but his crowning feat may have been organising and leading the successful New Zealand campaign to win the America’s Cup in 1995 - and inspiring a nation to don red socks. He was subsequently knighted.

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1991 Finalists

Sportsman: Martin Crowe (cricket), Andrew Jones (cricket),Maurice McKendry (harness racing), Wynton Rufer (soccer).

Sportswoman: Philippa Baker (rowing), Annelise Coberger (skiing), Susan Devoy (squash), Jan Higgins (golf).

Team: Eisenhower Trophy Team (golf), Women’s Golf Team, National Netball Team, National Women’s Soccer Team.

Coach/Official: John Davies (athletics), Robin Judkins (endurance events), Mark Lewis (tennis), Graham Lowe (league).

Fair Play: Jeff Crowe (cricket), Susan Devoy (squash), Sandra Edge (netball), Michael Jones (rugby).

1991 Halberg Award Winner - Philippa Baker

New Zealanders had won world single sculls titles before Philippa Baker, but they were professionals competing on a challenge basis before and after World War I. Baker in Vienna in 1991 won the world lightweight single sculls title, five years after her debut as an international single sculler, at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986, where she won silver. She and Linda de Jong were second in the world lightweight double sculls in 1989 and after her solo world triumph in 1991, Baker teamed up with Brenda Lawson to form a formidable double sculls combination. They were fourth at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992, won the world title in 1993 and 1994, were third in 1995 and at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, were sixth in the final. Philippa and 1989 winner Erin Baker are sisters, the second family combination to win New Zealand sport’s supreme award after Yvette and Roy Williams.

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1992 Finalists

Sportsman: Gary Anderson (cycling), Martin Crowe (cricket), Danyon Loader (swimming), Blyth Tait (equestrian).

Sportswoman: Annelise Coberger (skiing), Susan Devoy (squash), Barbara Kendall (yachting), Lorraine Moller (athletics), Jenny Newstead (swimming).

Team: Auckland (rugby), Three-Day Eventing Team (equestrian), World Cup Team (cricket), Star Class Team (yachting).

Coach/Official: Michael Clark (yachting), Duncan Laing (swimming), Warren Lees (cricket), Yvonne Willering (netball).

Fair Play: Grant Fox (rugby), Bruce Kendall (yachting), Ana Noovao (netball), David Tua (boxing).

1992 Halberg Award Winner - Annelise Coberger

Annelise Coberger first donned skis at the age of three and first raced at the age of seven, and it seemed she was hardly off skis for the first 20 years of her life. For all New Zealand’s skifields and keen skiers, international acclaim escaped New Zealanders until the arrival of Coberger. She won her first overseas competition in January 1990 and two months later, won the bronze medal in the slalom at the world junior championships. Coberger progressed from the Europa Cup slalom competition to the top-level World Cup and in 1992, won her first World Cup race. At the Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France, she became the first competitor from the southern hemisphere to win a Winter Games medal when she was second in the slalom. In the 1992-93 season, Coberger was second overall in the World Cup and gained a world ranking of two in the highly competitive event. She was the first winner of the renamed Halberg Award.

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1993 Finalists

Sportsman: Russell Coutts (yachting), Danyon Loader (swimming), Philip Tataurangi (golf), Jeff Wilson (rugby, cricket).

Sportswoman: Lynnette Brooky (golf), Annelise Coberger (skiing), Susan Devoy (squash), Brenda Lawson (rowing).

Team: Philippa Baker, Brenda Lawson (rowing), National Ice Skating Team, James Greenhalgh, Stephen Downs (tennis), Eisenhower Trophy Team (golf).

Coach/Official: Grant Clements (golf), Chris Ineson (Sports Foundation), Duncan Laing (swimming), Jeff Simpson (tennis).

Fair Play: Brad Butterworth (yachting), Bob Charles (golf), Jeff Wilson (rugby, cricket), John Wright (cricket).

Service to Sport: Arthur Lydiard (athletics).

1993 Halberg Award Winner - New Zealand Men’s Amateur Golf Team

For more than 30 years, New Zealand golf had targeted the Eisenhower Trophy for national men’s teams as "winnable". In 1992 in Vancouver, New Zealand had the men, Philip Tataurangi, Grant Moorhead, Stephen Scahill and Michael Campbell, capable of fulfilling such a dream. They were second after the first day and as the second of the four days unfolded, it was apparent that it was a battle between the New Zealanders and the Americans, who hitherto had dominated the Eisenhower. At the end of the second day, they shared the lead and at the end of the third, they were two shots behind the Americans. On the gripping final day, Campbell, Tataurangi and Moorhead shot 69s. The New Zealand tournament tally of 823 gave them victory by seven strokes, with Tataurangi’s 271 making him the leading individual, with Campbell a stroke behind.

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1994 Finalists

Sportsman: Danyon Loader (swimming), Mark Rendell (cycling), Vaughan Jefferis (equestrian), Paul Radisich (motorsport).

Sportswoman: Sandra Edge (netball), Cathy Millen (powerlifting), Jenny Rose (triathlon), Sarah Ulmer (cycling).

Team: Philippa Baker, Brenda Lawson (rowing), NZ Endeavour Crew (yachting), Stephen Petterson, Lindsay Arthur (shooting), Coutts Match Racing Team (yachting).

Fair Play: Brian Fowler (cycling).

Service to Sport: Ces Blazey (rugby).

1994 Halberg Award Winner - Philippa Baker & Brenda Lawson

After double scullers Philippa Baker and Brenda Lawson had won their first world title in the Czech Republic in 1993, they considered ending their newfound partnership and continuing their individual careers. Fortunately for them and for New Zealand, they decided against a breakup and at Eagle Creek Reservoir in Indianapolis in September 1994, Lawson and Baker successfully defended their title. The following year, in 1995, despite constant rumblings about personality differences between the pair, they won the bronze medal at the world championships and, at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, they ended their partnership with a sixth place. Philippa Baker became the second woman after Yvette Williams to be a double winner of the Halberg Award.

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1995 Finalists

Sportsman: Michael Campbell (golf), Russell Coutts (yachting), Danyon Loader (swimming), Jonah Lomu (rugby).

Sportswoman: Leslie Egnot (yachting), Marnie McGuire (golf), Jenny Rose (triathlon), Sarah Ulmer (cycling).

Team: Coxed Four (rowing), Medley Relay Team (swimming), Team New Zealand (yachting), World Cup All Blacks (rugby).

Fair Play: Mark Allen (rugby).

Service to Sport: Don Rowlands (rowing).

1995 Halberg Award Winner - America’s Cup Team

For a few New Zealanders with vision without horizon, the America’s Cup was the magnificent obsession. When the Australians broke the American shackles in 1983, the New Zealand desire was fuelled and New Zealanders challenged off Fremantle in 1987 and tried again in 1988 with the infamous big boat challenge. Over the summer of 1994-95, Team New Zealand had the organisation and the teamwork and, significantly, had a pair of boats without peer. The campaign to win the America’s Cup lasted five months on the water and so dominant were the New Zealanders, masterminded by Peter Blake and skippered by Russell Coutts, that they lost just one race out of 43. In the grand finale against Young America, Black Magic had five wins out of five for an astonishing triumph.

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1996 Finalists

Sportsman: Sean Fitzpatrick (rugby), Danyon Loader (swimming), Frank Nobilo (golf), Blyth Tait (equestrian).

Sportswoman: Sally Clark (equestrian), Kirsty Flavell (cricket), Barbara Kendall (boardsailing), Claudia Riegler (skiing).

Team: 1996 All Blacks, New Zealand Men’s Softball Team Black Sox, New Zealand Olympic Three-Day Eventing Team, Russell Coutt’s Match Crew Team Magic.

Coach: Duncan Laing (swimming).

Fair Play: Michael Jones (rugby).

Service to Sport: Walter Hadlee (cricket).

1996 Halberg Award Winner - Danyon Loader - (1990s Decade Champion)

It was the year the All Blacks finally won a test series in South Africa after years of trying, the year for which generations of New Zealanders had been waiting. But it was also the year of Danyon Loader, without argument the country’s greatest swimmer. Never before had an individual New Zealand swimmer won gold in the most demanding arena of world sport, the Olympic Games. The best we had achieved had been a quarter of a relay gold in 1912 when New Zealand was part of ‘Australasia’. But now Loader won not one gold, but two, to become not just New Zealand’s greatest swimmer but among the greatest New Zealand Olympians. When he won his first final, the 200 metres freestyle, the country was estatic. We hardly dared believe he could win a second – but he did, in the 400 metres freestyle. The years of early rising in Dunedin’s pre-dawn to train for hours under coach Duncan Laing at the Moana Pool, the years of returning to the pool after school, the years of selfless dedication to a distant goal, all culminated in two golden moments in the pool at the centennial Atlanta Olympic Games.

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1997 Finalists

Sportsman: Hamish Carter (triathlon), Aaron McIntosh (boardsailing), Blyth Tait (equestrian), Jeff Wilson (rugby).

Sportswoman: Beatrice Faumuinã (athletics), Toni Hodgkinson (athletics), Barbara Kendall (boardsailing), Claudia Riegler (skiing).

Team: All Blacks (rugby), Auckland Blues (rugby), Rob Hamill and Phil Stubbs (Atlantic rowing), New Zealand Badminton Team.

Coach: Frank Endacott (league), John Hart (rugby), Les Mills (athletics), Graeme Robson (badminton).

Fair Play: Michael Long (golf).

Service to Sport: Lois Muir (netball).

1997 Halberg Award Winner - Beatrice Faumuinã

The image of Beatrice Faumuinã winning the discus at the world track and field championships in Athens will be with New Zealanders forever: the concentration, the lunge, willing the discus further and further, then the smile, the constant, contented smile of a world champion. Whatever other sporting deeds were achieved in New Zealand’s name in 1997 – and there were many – this win by Faumuinã was the first by a New Zealander at the world championships which began in 1983. More than that, the first New Zealander to gain a medal at the championships that sit just below the Olympic pinnacle. Since 1990, when Faumuinã won her first New Zealand title, knowledgeable judges had seen her potential. She was fifth in the discus at the world junior championships in 1992, then second in the Commonwealth Games in 1994. In 1995, she became the only New Zealand woman to throw further than 60 metres and if the Atlanta Olympics were a setback when she failed to qualify, they were but a hiccup in a glittering career. The next year, all the world, but most especially New Zealanders, saw the potential of seven years before finally realised on the world stage. Her third throw of 66.82 metres gave her a massive lead in the Athens competition. No other competitor could go close. In 1998, she added the Commonwealth Games title.

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1998 Finalists

Sportsman: Hamish Carter (triathlon), Aaron McIntosh (boardsailing), Blyth Tait (equestrian), Rob Waddell (rowing).

Sportswoman: Beatrice Faumuinã (athletics), Barbara Kendall (boardsailing), Debbie Nelson (duathlon), Sarah Ulmer (cycling).

Team: Equestrian Eventing Team, NZ Surf Life Saving Team, The Black Ferns (women’s rugby), The NZ 1998 Kiwi Team (league).

Coach: Geoff Barry (surf life saving), Grant Beck (boardsailing), Ron Cheatley (cycling), Richard Tonks (rowing).

Fair Play: The Black Ferns (women’s rugby).

Service to Sport: Sir David Beattie.

1998 Halberg Award Winner - Rob Waddell(see 1999 Bio)

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1999 Halberg Award Winner - Finalists

Sportsman: Chris Cairns (cricket), Jonah Lomu (rugby), Mark Todd (equestrian), Rob Waddell (rowing).

Sportswoman: Leilani Joyce (squash), Barbara Kendall (boardsailing), Debbie Nelson (duathlon), Sarah Ulmer (cycling).

Team: NZ Men’s Cricket, NZ Women’s Cricket, Canterbury Crusaders (rugby), NZ Women’s Golf.

Coach: Grant Beck (boardsailing), Ron Cheatley (cycling), Wayne Smith (rugby), Richard Tonks (rowing).

Fair Play: Stacy Jones (league).

Service to Sport: Iain Gallaway.

1999 Halberg Award Winner - Rob Waddell

When New Zealanders thought of rowing success, they thought of eight and fours of fond memory. Seldom did they think of single scullers, though there had been Empire champions, men such as Don Rowlands and Jim Hill, and a trio of world champions in the old days of professional challenge races. But Rob Waddell changed all that. In 1998, while the sporting focus for New Zealanders was on the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Waddell in Cologne won the world single sculls title, a superlative performance. He’d finished second in his semifinal to the Olympic champion, Xeno Mueller of Switzerland, and given the quality of the field - World and Olympic champions - few outsiders would have rated Waddell in the final. But they would not have known of Waddell’s preparation, his conditioning, his determination. At the three quarter mark, Waddell was behind a Czech, Vaclev Chalups, and marginally ahead of the defending world champion, Iztok Cop of Slovenia. The last 500 metres is the toughest 500 metres, when the strain tells and the body cries out for relief. Chalups wilted. Cop weakened. Waddell did neither. He won. He was world champion. He backed that up a year later, defending his singles crown at the 1999 World Rowing Championships. He also defended his World Indoor rowing title.

Caricatures designed by Paul Clarkson