It will mark the conclusion of a four-year long project and will commemorate Olympic Week 2009 with an Olympians Wall of Honour that has been unveiled at the Olympic Museum in Wellington.

 

In total, 580 of the 1,111 New Zealand Olympians or members of their family will be present at one of the 17 functions being held around the country this week.

 

The remaining commemorative pins will be delivered to New Zealand Olympians around the world.

 

Of the 1,111 Olympians, only nine are yet to be located.

 

The oldest will be 86 year-old Harold Nelson, who represented New Zealand in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at the 1948 London Olympic Games.

 

He was a member of the seven-strong team that travelled by ship to the Games, the first to be held after the end of the Second World War.

 

Three members of the London team are still living. swimmer Ngaire Galloway (nee Lane), 84, who will join Nelson at the Nelson function tomorrow and weightlifter Maurice Crow, 85, will attend the Taranaki event tonight.

 

New Zealand's youngest ever athlete, swimmer Rebecca Perrott who was 15 years and 29 days when she competed at the Montreal Olympic Games in 1976 will be present at the Wellington function and receive pin number 366.

 

Olympic athletics heroes Sir Murray Halberg (number 94) and Sir John (number 380) will receive their pins in Auckland while fellow track athlete, the late Jack Lovelock (number 33), the 1936 Olympic 1500 metres champion, will have his pin presented to nephew Mike Butler on behalf of the Lovelock family.

 

New Zealand's first female medallist YvetteCorlett (nee Williams), who won gold in the long jump at Helsinki 1952, is Olympian number 76 and will be honoured for her acheivements at the Counties Manukau function this evening.

 

Pin number 1,111 will be awarded to Kirsty Yallop, who represented New Zealand in the women's football tournament in Beijing last year.

 

It will not be until the close of the London Games in 2012 that Olympian number 1,112 will be named.

 

The full list of Olympians by number can be viewed at www.olympic.org.nz and are ordered alphabetically by Games.