[1] While a founder member of the International Olympic Committee, New Zealand did not send its own team to compete until the Games of the VI Olympiad (Antwerp 1920), though at the 1908 and 1912 Summer Olympics New Zealand and Australia competed as "Australasia".

The NZOC emblem consisting of a depiction of a silver fern (New Zealand's sporting emblem) superimposed on the Olympic Rings was created as a marketing symbol in 1979 (which was initially in all-white on a black background).

It was first publicly used at an Olympic Games at the Games of the XXII Olympiad (Moscow 1980, in which observers thought that the fern was an olive branch of peace)—New Zealand competed under this flag to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Former New Zealand members of the International Olympic Committee are: Current International Olympic Committee (IOC) members are: The NZOC is governed by a board that is headed by a president.

The two IOC members plus an athletes' representative complete the board.