On the occasion of the ceremony, a world map artwork was created at the stadium to commemorate the athletes participating in the tournament. However, New Zealand does not appear on the map.
In this context, New Zealand media 1News noted: “Even a record number of gold medals and 11th place in the medal table do not seem enough to justify the inclusion of Aotearoa (New Zealand) on the world stage.”
At the same time, other Internet users believed that this was not a specific attack against New Zealand, since the representation did not seek geographic accuracy and many Asian and Caribbean island countries, as well as Indonesia, Madagascar and others, were missing. “Does Indonesia cry?” As one commentator noted.
The repeated omission of Australia’s neighbors from representations of the world led to the tourism campaign ‘Get NZ on the Map’.
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