Life back in the snow lane
Nico Porteous has had plenty of adjusting to do since returning home with a Winter Olympics medal, writes David Leggat. The main thing I’ve been told is if you are given an opportunity, always take it, because you never know what’s going to happen.
There are two teenagers in Wanaka called Nico Porteous and that’s the way the Winter Olympic medallist likes it. Remember the events at the Games in PyeongChang in February? New Zealand left them with Annelise Coberger no longer the country’s solitary Winter Games medal winner.
Porteous won a stunning bronze in the halfpipe freeski and that came shortly after Zoi Sadowski-Synnott had pushed the door open with her bronze in the big air final.
For a time back then, New Zealanders fell in love with the Winter Olympics, which traditionally tends to resonate less forcefully in this part of the world than its summer counterpart. Chalk one up for a talented group of young winter athletes, of whom Porteous and SadowskiSynnott were the flagbearers.
For Porteous, still 16 and the youngest Olympic medallist New Zealand has produced, life was a whirl when he returned home. Now things have settled down and he’s happy with that.
“I see myself as the same old Nico before I went to the Olympics,” he said. “But I lead two pretty much separate lives, one doing media and the other being a normal kid at home. I like to separate them and just be that normal kid.”
He remembers the early period after getting home to Wanaka as a full-on period of commitments and obligations.
“But it was cool to have a whole bunch of people around me I knew all the time. I just really enjoyed it, soaked it all in.”
Speaking engagements took up plenty of his time. He spoke at schools about leadership and worked with different organisations with an accent on youth, including the Sir Peter Blake Trust.
But every so often, in the quiet reflective moments, does he still think back on the events in PyeongChang?
“I do exactly that. Sometimes sitting down quietly in a chair at the end of a busy day and it pops into my head.
“Wow, I can’t believe that it happened. But that’s my medal now and I have that for the rest of my life. It blows my mind.”
Porteous, who is preparing for the junior world freeski championships as part of the Winter Games in the Queenstown region later this month, is aware that life can change in a blink.
He’s working to complete his home schooling — “I’m trying to get as much done as I possibly can right now. That’s a really big focus for me” — and is absorbing advice since his Olympic achievement.
“The main thing I’ve been told is if you are given an opportunity, always take it, because you never know what’s going to happen.
“You could find what you want to do for the rest of your life, or meet an amazing person you find inspirational.”
Porteous knows his time in his chosen sport could be relatively short. It tends to be a young person’s game and he is enjoying the now but is also conscious of what lies ahead.
“I am close to finishing school and going on to the next life step, making sure I’ve got a plan B if skiing fails, or I get a career-ending injury. It’s very important to me to have a backup plan when sport finishes. It’s not going to go on forever.”
Porteous took time out after the Games to unwind. Skiing, yes, but not in any competitive way.
“It was going back to why I really ski and being up in the mountains, not just training. I’ll go into the back country, and up in the mountains, to those roots of why I started skiing. Express myself in a way. It’s a really good thing to do.”
So what are his prospects at the junior worlds? Porteous has no idea if he’d be a favourite and doesn’t think in those terms.
“I wouldn’t really know. The only thing I can control is how I’m going to ski. You can’t control what other people think, so I don’t worry too much about that.”
Which brings us back to South Korea. In his heart of hearts when he arrived, did he think he had a chance to make the podium?
“A medal, that was a dream. It wasn’t a goal. Anything can happen in our sport, so I really focused on me. And it worked, I guess.”
Nico Porteous