Media release from

Hon Jim Anderton
Minister for Economic,
Regional and Industry Development
Progressive Leader

30 March 2004

World champion students finally receive a medal each

In 2002 a team of New Zealand students working from New Plymouth, won a great achievement - it became the World Champions of the Enterprise Olympics, but there were no individual gold medals awarded. Minister of Economic Development, Jim Anderton, took up the cause for the students to see if he could get a medal for each of them.

"While visiting New Plymouth last year I discovered that the World Champion NZ team for the Enterprise Olympics had received only one medal between the whole team to mark their magnificent achievement of 2002.

"I approached the sponsor of the Enterprise Olympics, the World Intellectual Property Office, and requested that the students receive a medal each. The students live in different parts of the country, and so they could not even view their shared medal, nor have their own to show their friends and families.

"Finally, the World Intellectual Property Office has agreed to give each member of the team their own medal and it gave me great pleasure to be able to send those medals out to the students this week.

"The World Champions of the Enterprise Olympics for 2002 are: Kate Walton, Carlos Bagile, Holly Silver, Bridget Mooney, Lesieli Prescott, Blair Howarth, Charlene Bills and Angela Bocock.

"These students demonstrated to the world the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit we have in New Zealand. It is this attitude that will enable New Zealand to do well in the future and I congratulate the students again on their efforts," Jim Anderton said.

NOTE: A New Zealand team also won the second Enterprise Olympics in 2003 working out of Wellington.

ENDS

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