Golden Sarah tops up the glow

Sarah Ulmer, winner of the Supreme Halberg Award, with her partner and coach, Brendon Cameron. Picture / Paul Estcourt

New Zealand's Olympic golden girl, Sarah Ulmer, capped her brilliant year by taking the supreme Halberg Award last night.

Ulmer, who spearheaded the greatest year ever in New Zealand cycling, was honoured once again with a haka by the Olympic men's hockey team - an act which, at the Athens team village, had brought her to tears after her stunning ride to victory at the velodrome.

Athens last August seemed like "a lifetime ago", Ulmer said last night.

It was there that she delivered what has been hailed as one of the greatest performances by any athlete at the Olympics.

Ulmer, as gracious and elegant last night as she was on the winner's dais at Athens, thanked her supporters, saying: "All of you had way more confidence in me than I had in myself for my whole career. I'm just glad that last year some of it rubbed off on me."

She thanked her sponsors "in the cheap seats", her family, and her boyfriend and coach, Brendon Cameron, with whom she "planned the attack".

Ulmer said after accepting the award that she was "so proud" to call herself a New Zealander.

"The highlight for the Olympics for me wasn't when I was handed a medal by a Greek guy I didn't know, it was the New Zealand team that came to watch me at the velodrome and right before I went to accept my medal the team members there gave me a haka.

"Being saluted in a Kiwi way like that when you're a squillion miles away from home ... is the most powerful feeling in the world."

Ulmer said seeing NZ athletes competing on the world stage gave her goosebumps. "It's just wicked."

"It's a pretty powerful thing to give New Zealand. I am getting corny now, but just to think that when New Zealand en masse is ... absolutely fizzing, everyone back home is getting together for something, that is a really positive, cool thing. If sports people can be doing that job for the rest of New Zealand then, hell, I'm pretty keen to be part of it."

Earlier in the evening, she was typically down to Earth as she said she didn't know who designed the black dress she was wearing because she had borrowed it from a friend.

The dress, the sparkling earrings and necklace combined to create a look far from the lycra of Athens.

But the smile as she received her sportswoman of the year title, then the supreme Halberg Award, was as full and familiar as the one she wore after her Olympic triumph.