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Under Alert Level 1, the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame is now OPEN. Our hours are 10am to 3pm (Wednesdays to Sundays). We are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays (open by appointment only on these days).
Helmer Pedersen and Earle Wells
Inducted in 1990
When Earle Wells sought a skipper in 1961 for his Flying Dutchman class yacht, Pandora, and settled on a Danish émigré, Helmer Pedersen, an Olympic champion combination was born.
Sporting Category:
  • Yachting
Pedersen had been a reserve in the 1960 Olympic team and had also been a reserve for Denmark at the 1952 Olympics. The new pair won the 1964 Olympic trials in Pandora but got off to a slow start in the racing in Sagami Bay on the outskirts of Tokyo.

They were 16th in the first race and failed to finish the second. But their fortunes changed and in the ensuing racing, they gained three firsts, a third and a fourth – enough to give them the gold medal, the second won by New Zealanders at an Olympics.

Sporting Spotlight

Onny Parun

(1947 - )

It’s not too often that modern sports people admit to answering the call of Queen and country first, but that’s what Onny Parun did in 1975 when he chose to play for New Zealand in a Davis Cup tie instead of playing in a tournament in Holland.
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New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame
Railway Station
Anzac Avenue
Dunedin 9016
Otago
New Zealand
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