In the early years of the modern Olympic Games, people from New Zealand participated but not on behalf of New Zealand. The country's earliest participant, Victor Lindberg at the 1900 Summer Olympics, was only officially recognised as New Zealand's first competitor in 2014. In 1908 and 1912, a total of six New Zealanders competed as part of a team from Australasia. But none of these early New Zealand competitors were rowers. After the 1916 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, were cancelled due to World War I, New Zealand sent its first rower to the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium.