Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 preview show. Video / NZ Herald
OPINION:
The Winter Olympics has always held no more than a cursory interest for most Kiwi sports fans.
Despite the Southern Alps forming the backbone of the South Island, dotted with ski fields, skiing and snowboarding is expensive and the sport has been largely treated as participation only, a leisureactivity.
Every four years New Zealanders watch the Winter Games, marvel at sports such as alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, bobsleigh, skeleton, ski-jumping, curling and ice hockey and when the Games end, that's generally it in terms of interest.
However, the Beijing Winter Olympics which officially began last night with the opening ceremony shape as a watershed for New Zealand winter sports, particularly snow sports.
While Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous were briefly propelled into the spotlight with their incredible bronze medal-winning efforts in snowboarding and free skiing four years ago in PyeongChang, South Korea, there was only a sense it was "cool" and elation quickly faded.
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (L) and Nico Porteous. Photo / Photosport
But I sense it's different this time. Four years ago, snowboarding and free skiing were only starting to become mainstream.
Snowboarding debuted in the 1998 Nagano Games, with free skiing an exhibition sport at Calgary in 1988 before medals were awarded for the first time at the 1992 Albertville Games. They are showcased annually at the X-Games, where the sport has long been on ESPN and appeals to youth and where the emphasis appears to be on having fun rather than winning.
New Zealand has never won a Winter Olympic gold medal. Annelise Coberger's silver in the women's slalom at the 1992 Albertville Games is the closest we have got. Our only other medals were the two bronze medals four years ago.
The expectation is New Zealand will win gold in Beijing. No longer the fresh face kids, Sadowski-Synnott and Porteous are the best in the world in their sports, they are favourites, world champions, X-Games champions. It's remarkable to think some people will be disappointed if they don't top the podium.
Sadowski-Synnott tells me she's recognised whenever she goes into the supermarket in Wānaka (population only 9000) but apart from that is relatively unknown in her own country. That will change if she wins gold and possibly double gold at these Games. She will be elevated to the same status as other great Kiwi sportswomen.
Her first opportunity will be in the snowboard slopestyle final tomorrow, assuming she qualifies today. Then it's the Big Air next week.
There had been a strong uptake of kids getting into snowboarding post-PyeongChang. Now, given a timezone which sees the Games broadcast after school over the next couple of weeks, there has never been a better opportunity to capitalise on the anticipated success.
Porteous has been dominant in men's free skiing halfpipe. He's favourite for gold too but won't get his opportunity until the final weekend of the Games.
Then there is alpine ski-racer Alice Robinson who, at just 20, is renowned on the women's World Cup circuit as having the "fastest turn on skis".
Robinson has been a sensation since she had the second-fastest second run at the 2019 world championships in Sweden as a 17-year-old in the giant slalom. She went on to finish second at the World Cup finals in Andorra before, at the start of the next season, winning her first World Cup race in Solden in Austria while still 17.
Not since Coberger and Claudia Riegler in the 1990s has New Zealand produced a world-class ski racer and Robinson is a medal chance in the GS and Super G in Beijing.
Alpine skiing is mainstream. A core Olympic sport, it is massive in Europe and Robinson is a bigger name there than she is here. Here's hoping that changes over the next two weeks.
New Zealand could win as many as five medals. That might be a tad optimistic but three would represent an incredible achievement for a team of 15.
Compare this to the Summer Games where we performed superbly in Tokyo with 20 medals, but had a team of more than 200.
Unlike Norway, which has a similar population and is expected to top the medal count in Beijing as it did four years ago, New Zealand will never compete to that extent. We just don't have the climate, the resources, the facilities to even begin to compare with the Scandinavian powerhouse.
However, I believe the likes of Sadowski-Synnott, Porteous and Robinson at these Games will inspire Kiwi kids to follow in their footsteps more than any other Winter Olympics that have come before.
