Tottenham Hotspur's Ryan Nelsen is to captain the New
Zealand men's football team at the London 2012 Olympic Games, with Wolfsburg's
Rebecca Smith leading the women's team. Nelsen will be one of three over 23-year-olds New
Zealand is allowed to take to London following the announcement of a group of
athletes whose selection was confirmed today, with 100 days to go until the
start of the Olympic and Paralympics this summer. Rebecca Smith, another defender playing in Europe, was nominated for the women's FIFA World Player of the Year award in 2007 and picked up the prize for the best player in New Zealand in the same year. She captained the country at their second and third World Cup appearances, in China four years' ago and in Germany last year. The women qualified recently with a resounding 15-0 playoff victory over Papua New Guinea, and unlike the men do not have to worry about age restrictions. |
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