John Key

Wellington, June 11 NZPA - The Government will give high performance sport an extra $45 million over the next four years, Prime Minister John Key announced today.

New Zealand's high performance sport would get a "major rejuvenation" with a revamp of the high performance institute within Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc).

The Millennium Institute of Sport and Health will become the National Training Centre for High Performance Sport with a $40m expansion, including $15m from the Government.

The Government would also boost its funding with $10m in 2010-11, $15m in 2011-12 and $20m annually after that, bringing government funding of high performance sport to $60m annually by 2012-13.

The changes aimed to help New Zealand's elite athletes achieve consistent success on the world stage, Mr Key said.

"New Zealand is home to world-class athletes from a variety of sporting codes. Our goals is to help those athletes become world-beaters and, to do that, we need to be able to provide the very best technology, support and facilities."

Minister for Sport and Recreation Murray McCully said the changes were "the biggest boost ever for New Zealand high performance sport," the full impact of which would be evident by the 2016 Olympics.

The new High Performance Institute will be a subsidiary of Sparc.

The board will be chaired by Paul Collins and will consist of three other Sparc directors and two independent directors -- NZX chief executive and former Olympic swimmer Mark Weldon and Olympic triathlon gold medallist Hamish Carter.

The board will oversee the expansion of high performance sport facilities over the next three years.