Two time Olympian and current chief executive of Sport New Zealand, Peter Miskimmin, will be in Dublin to deliver the keynote address at this year’s Federation of Irish Sport Conference, which is scheduled to be held in Trinity College Dublin on Thursday 31st May.
Appointed chief executive of Sport New Zealand in 2008, he has overseen New Zealand’s most successful Olympic Games (Beijing, London, and Rio) and driven a significant step change in community sport thinking and implementation.
The theme of the Conference is “Sport: The New Zealand Way. Grassroots to Greats. What can Ireland learn?” Miskimmin, and his colleague Geoff Barry who heads up Sport New Zealand’s Community Sport programme, will share the experiences that have helped to create highly successful programmes across all areas of sport in New Zealand. Full details of the Conference and how to book can be found at irishsport.ie/newzealand.
The success of sport in New Zealand, both in terms of participation and also at High Performance level, has been referenced by a number of Ireland’s politicians in recent years. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, referenced in his election manifesto New Zealand’s haul of 18 medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics as a target that Ireland should be aiming to match. New Zealand with a population similar to Ireland has also enjoyed major success at increasing participation levels across all sports, as it uses sport to create a healthier population.
