New Zealand athletes have endured blood, sweat and tears in their relentless pursuit of greatness at the 2024 Olympic Games. However, their unwavering commitment has been rewarded with a range of triumphs, making every challenge worthwhile. In the fourth instalment of a six-part video series, the Herald speaks with some
Paris 2024: The career highlights of New Zealand Olympians
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“That’ll probably be the best highlight for me because it was unexpected.
“I thought I was getting in trouble when they came up to find me... so when the security found me, they were like: ‘oh, no, you’re going off to get an award, we just wanted to make sure we know where you are’.
“I was like, ‘oh, okay, cool’.”
Emma Twigg: Rower, five-time Olympian
One of New Zealand’s most experienced Olympians had her most memorable moment on the water early in her career.
“For me [it] was my qualifying for my first games when I was 19 at the Munich World champs [which] must have been back in 2007.
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“A long time ago, but that was a super exciting time to say that you’ve kind of reached that dream and qualified a boat for New Zealand.
“That kind of got me excited about what the Olympics was.”
Dylan Schmidt: Trampolinist, three-time Olympian
Dylan Schmidt, who won trampoline bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, is aiming higher in Paris. However, four years ago, he struggled to believe he was a medal contender.
“My first competition back from my knee surgery was an Olympic qualifier for Tokyo - I’d trained for about six weeks.
“I’d been out for a year and I managed to come fifth, which was beyond what I thought I was going to do.
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“The emotion I felt after that competition, being back after a year, was pretty special.”
Tom Mackintosh: Rower, two-time Olympian
Mackintosh told the Herald his career highlight was the Tokyo Games when he won Olympic gold in the Men’s Eight.
“That’s probably the obvious one. We were never expected to win that race.
“If you placed a bet, you would have 17 times your money.
“Pretty good odds for the bettor, bad odds for us.”
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Zoe Hobbs: Sprinter, first-time Olympian
Hobbs had a breakout year on her road to securing a spot at Paris.
In 2023, Hobbs – the then seven-time 100m sprint national champion – shattered her personal and national records five times, achieving a historic 10.96-second run at the Resisprint International meet in Switzerland. She qualified for her first Olympic Games and became the first woman from Oceania to break the 11-second barrier in the 100m sprint.
“I would say running sub-11 [seconds] for the first time and becoming the first Oceania woman to do so was a massive moment.
“[It’s] something that I didn’t see coming at the time, which I think made it even more special.”
Bonnie Jansen is a multimedia journalist in the NZME sports team. She’s a football commentator and co-host of the Football Fever podcast. She’s equally passionate about women’s sport and was part of the Te Rito cadetship scheme before becoming a fulltime journalist.