Rowing historian Bernard Hempseed in New Zealand writes to HTBS:

In New Zealand we also have New Year’s Honours to recognize service to the community. We have awards for the Queen’s Birthday in June, but otherwise New Zealand has more or less done away with the old British awards of OBE and MBE, etc., and has our own Order of Merit of which there are several grades.

Eric Murray and Hamish Bond (above, left to right), who won gold in the Pairs at the London Games, are among several Olympians who have been recognized in the New Year’s Honours List. They have been made Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit, together with fellow rowers Joseph Sullivan and Nathan Cohen, who also won gold in London.

Read what The New Zealand Herald writes about these rowers, here.

(Other London Games gold medallist, Mahe Drysdale, was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit already in 2009.)