Paris Olympic Games champion sprint canoeist Alicia Hoskin with mother Toni and father Craig at the 2024/25 Tairāwhiti Sports Awards on Friday. Hoskin won the sportsperson and sportswoman categories. Photo / Brennan Thomas, Strike Photography
Paris Olympic Games champion sprint canoeist Alicia Hoskin with mother Toni and father Craig at the 2024/25 Tairāwhiti Sports Awards on Friday. Hoskin won the sportsperson and sportswoman categories. Photo / Brennan Thomas, Strike Photography
Gisborne’s Olympic gold medal-winning sprint canoeist Alicia Hoskin has capped a monumental year by winning the Tairāwhiti 2024-25 Sportsperson Award.
Hoskin qualified for the ultimate award by winning the Sportswoman accolade. Both awards were presented at a prizegiving function at The Vines on Friday night.
The awards wereback after a three-year break, and covered the period from January 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025.
Tairāwhiti Sports Awards overall and sportswoman category winner Alicia Hoskin with Bronwyn Kay and Jake Stevens of The Real Estate Agents. Photo / Brennan Thomas, Strike Photography
Chief sponsors were The Real Estate Agents and Bronwyn Kay, and Master of Ceremonies was breakfast TV host and former netball international Jenny-May Clarkson.
At the Paris Olympics in August last year, Hoskin and Lisa Carrington won gold in the women’s K2 500 metres and – with Olivia Brett and Tara Vaughan – the K4 500m.
The women’s K4 500m team’s Olympic victory earned them recognition as Halberg Team of the Year.
Hoskin, 25, is based in Auckland and trains with the Canoe Racing New Zealand high-performance squad.
Dame Lisa Carrington and Alicia Hoskin celebrate winning gold in the K2 500m final at the Paris Olympics, one of Hoskin's two gold medals at the Games. Photo / Getty Images
But she was born and raised in Gisborne, where she was head girl at Gisborne Girls’ High School in 2017.
As a member of the Poverty Bay Kayak Club, Hoskin was coached by 1984 Australian Olympic sprint canoeist Liz Thompson, who was one of two Tairāwhiti Legends of Sport inducted on Friday night. The other was champion waka ama competitor and coach Kiwi Campbell, who died late last year.
For Hoskin, a promising paddling career was under threat just as it was taking off. In 2017, she was selected for the junior canoe sprint world championships but a pre-departure health check showed she had Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, which can cause rapid heartbeat, even cardiac arrest.
She underwent a cardiac ablation, a procedure that scars tissue in the heart to block abnormal electrical signals, and returned to competitive paddling.
In 2019, by then based in Auckland, Hoskin made her world championship debut in Hungary. She was named canoe sprint athlete of the year at the Canoe Racing New Zealand 2020 Sport and Recognition Awards.
Lisa Carrington and Alicia Hoskin with their second gold medal won together. Photo / Photosport
In June 2021, Hoskin competed in the K2 and K4 500m races in the delayed Tokyo Olympics, finishing out of the medals, albeit fourth in the K4.
By the 2023 world championships in Duisburg, Germany, things were looking up. Hoskin, Carrington, Brett and Vaughan won gold in the K4 500m – a precursor of double success the following year in Paris.
Hoskin told the prizegiving audience she was grateful to “so many people here who have contributed so much to my journey”.
Olympic Games double gold medallist canoeist Alicia Hoskin with Deputy Mayor Aubrey Ria, who presented the sportswoman award at the Tairāwhiti Sports Awards. Photo / Brennan Thomas, Strike Photography
She recalled the thrill of racing down the Olympic course with her parents and “lots of other Gizzy supporters” watching, and she hoped youngsters would be encouraged by seeing what she had been able to achieve.
“It’s pretty cool to grow up in a place where you can believe in what’s possible, with the likes of Alan (Thompson) and Grant (Bramwell) who have gone before.
“Thanks to all those who have supported my journey.”
