Sports History NZ
Jesse Mulligan talks to athletes, administrators and journalists about major moments in New Zealand sport.
Episodes
Mark Graham is widely regarded as the best rugby league player to ever come out of New Zealand, and that's not just us saying it, in 2007 he was named the New Zealand player of the century and was the first Kiwi inducted into the NRL Hall of Fame.
Gilbert Enoka knows about mental toughness. The coach and author is best known for his time with the All Blacks - he worked with them for 23 years. Now other international teams are calling on his insight on finding the winning edge.
In 2001, Sheila was the first female trainer to win the Melbourne Cup, with a horse named Ethereal. In 2024 she became the first woman to win it twice when Knight's Choice crossed the line first. The success doesn't stop there, in 2025 she was honored at the NZ Thoroughbred Racing Awards.
Very few people make it to five Olympic games. Even fewer make it to six. But that's a feat that para-alpine skier Adam Hall is set to achieve in 2026, when he competes at the 2026 Milano Cortina Paralympic Winter games.
Time for NZ Sporting History, and today we're looking at the history of controversial calls in Kiwi sport. To look back at some of the most high-wire moments Jesse is joined by award-winning sports journalist Dylan Cleaver.
Marathon runner Lorraine Moller took part in the first ever Women's Olympic Marathon at the 1984 LA Olympics, coming fifth. Over her 20-year career she ended up running marathons in four Olympics, winning bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
In 1988 Angela Walker became just the second New Zealander to compete in Rhythmic Gymnastics at the Olympics. Despite that being 37 years ago, no one else has repeated that feat since. Angela joins Jesse to discuss the highs, lows, pirouettes, and leaps of her sporting career.
The All Blacks versus Springboks is a rivalry almost as old as the game itself, so on this NZ Sporting History, we wanted to look back on some of the great All Blacks V Springboks moments. Veteran sports journalist and broadcaster Phil Gifford chats to Emile.
Emma Gilmour is a trailblazer in motor-racing. She became the first woman to win a round of the New Zealand Rally Championship when she claimed victory in the 2016 Rally of Canterbury. She then went on to become the first ever woman driver for McLaren Racing in 2022.
Nicknamed the Hairy Javelin, Grant Elliot began his cricketing career in his native South Africa. But a move to New Zealand would set up him up for an international career that saw him compete in all formats of the game. He looks back on the big moments.
Amelia Kerr plays cricket for Wellington, and internationally for New Zealand. She is the youngest person to score a double century in a One Day International. She was named player of the tournament at the 2024 Women's T20 World Cup after helping New Zealand win the trophy for the first time.
When it comes to sport and to broadcasting, there isn't much Ric Salizzo hasn't done. He got his start as a sports journalist before joining the All Blacks as the teams' first media manager. Ric is behind SportsCafe, which is now a podcast Sportscafe-ish and The Crowd Goes Wild.
Steve Williams is widely regarded as one of the most successful caddies in golf history. He caddied for Tiger Woods for 12 years, winning 13 majors together. The pair parted ways in 2011. Now Steve has written a book "Together we Roared" about his time caddying for Tiger.
New Zealand rugby lost another great with Stu Wilson dying at the age of 70. For most of his career, Stu served as a winger, playing 85 games for the All Blacks and almost 200 for Wellington. Sports journalist and broadcaster Phil Gifford joins Jesse to look back at Stu Wilson's career.
For today's sporting history, Perlina Lau talks to Adrian Blincoe who was a distance runner who represented New Zealand at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He also held the New Zealand record for the 5000m for 15 years.
For today's sporting history we're going back to the 1981, where a New Zealander took the running world by storm. 24-year-old Allison Roe, a long-distance runner from the Auckland's north shore, won both the prestigious Boston & New York marathons in the same year. She broke both course records and smashed the world record in New York. Only to have it controversially stripped weeks later. Allison became a global star overnight an...
This week we're joined by former Tall Fern legend Jody Cameron. Jody competed at the Athens games with the Black Ferns in 2004 and now co-owns the all-female-owned basketball team the Northern Kahu. She also leads High Performance Sport New Zealand's initiative to help women pursue a career in high performance coaching.
This week for sporting history I'm joined by Katherine Oberlin-Brown At just 19 she was the women's two-time Motorcross World champion... The first time anyone had held the title back-to-back. Katherine had a glittering career in front of her. She might still be riding today... If it weren't for one fateful moment. A training crash that left her with just a 50% chance of ever walking again.
For today's sporting history we're going back to 1974. A fleeting moment - less than 11 seconds - when track & field bumped into gymnastics. A splash of magic happened and a boy from Papakura came inches away from revolutionising the long jump. That boy was Tuariki Delamere. And that magic... The Delamere flip. A short lived - and quickly banned - long jump technique. It involved doing a summersault mid jump.
The sport of horse racing has been Noel Harris' whole life. His father Jock was a Manawatū jockey and horse trainer, who won more than 350 races. Following in his father's footsteps, Noel rode his first winner at Foxton on 16 May 1970 and by the time he retired from racing in 2015, had ridden over two-thousand winners in New Zealand. He also won the jockeys' premiership in both New Zealand and Singapore. In 2018, Harris was i...
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