Paul Ackerley

Paul Ackerley (* 16th May 1949 in Ashburton , † 3. May 2011 in Wellington ) was a New Zealand hockey player and coach, who at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal , the gold medal in hockey won.

Life

Ackerley studied after school at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch and began his career as a hockey player at the University of Canterbury Hockey Club . In 1974 he was appointed to the national hockey team for the first time , belonged to it until 1977 and scored 25 goals.

During this time he was a participant in the Summer Olympics in Montreal in 1976 and defeated the Netherlands with his team first in the semifinals on July 28, 1976 with a 2-1 after extra time. In the final on July 30, 1976, the New Zealand national team finally defeated Australia with a 1-0 and thus won the only gold medal for New Zealand at these games alongside the 1500-meter runner John Walker .

For this achievement, Ackerley and the team were inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in Dunedin in 1990.

In 1992 he became the coach of the women's field hockey team and won the bronze medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur . He then ended this activity and most recently worked as a consultant for training and voluntary work at Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc).

Web links

• Paul Ackerley in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• NEW ZEALAND HERALD: Kiwi gold medal-winning Olympian dies , accessed May 13, 2011