Dragon's creator wants focus on NZ team

5:00AM Wednesday April 30, 2008
By Lincoln Tan

Architect Ron Sang, putting the final touches to his dragon sculpture yesterday, hoped Kiwis could forget about the controversies over the Beijing Olympics and concentrate on supporting the New Zealand team.

The sculpture, an abstract dragon with a greenstone ball, will be unveiled tonight and presented as a good luck gift to the New Zealand Olympians after the launch ceremony of their uniform.

"We don't want to get into the politics of the Olympics, but just get behind our team," said Mr Sang, a member of the New Zealand Chinese Association.

The $50,000 sculpture was designed by New Zealand Chinese artist Guy Ngan, who will be at the function tonight at Villa Maria Estate, where the team's chef de mission, Dave Currie, will be presented with the art piece by association vice-president Steven Young.

Money for the sculpture was raised mainly from the local-born Chinese community.

The dragon will be with the Kiwi Olympians until the end of the Games, when it will be presented to the hosts as New Zealand's gift to them.

"The dragon is a perfect symbol for China, but we didn't want to give them a sculpture of a real dragon because they have plenty of those," Mr Sang said.

"That is why we decided to have an modern abstract dragon, one that's uniquely New Zealand - and having the greenstone is our way of including the Maori people in our gift."

Sheet-metal engineer Wayne Blythen, who worked on the sculpture, said it took six weeks and more than 200 man hours to put it together. It is on a 1000kg black-granite base, imported from China, engraved with the words "in recognition of the enduring friendship between China and New Zealand" in English and Chinese.

The sculpture will be exhibited at the Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin airports until it goes to Beijing in July.