Funding boost for snow sports

Snow sports was the big winner as High Performance Sport NZ announced a $36 million core investment programme for 2019.

The investment marks the mid-point of the Tokyo Olympiad and sees a recommitment of funds to targeted National Sport Organisations (NSOs) and new allocations to targeted and campaign NSOs where agreements were set to expire.

After New Zealand’s most successful Winter Olympics campaign, snow sports has been elevated from targeted other to a tier two sport, receiving a $250,000 increase to $2.25 million. Teenagers Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (women’s snowboarding big air) and Nico Porteous (men’s ski halfpipe) both claimed bronze in Pyeongchang. Prior to this year’s event, New Zealand had only won one Winter Olympic medal, a silver in Albertville in 1992.

Canoe racing also received a significant boost. Its investment went up by $150,000 to $1.9m, moving from tier two to tier one, following a successful performance at the world championships.

Men’s softball was given a $50,000 increase to go towards preparations for the 2019 World Cup, while Olympic weightlifting received an additional $20,000.

Squash ($25,000) and boxing (15,000) also received a bump, as has surfing ($20,000) to support qualification as the sport prepares to make its Olympic debut.

The news was not so good for bowls, which has seen investment cut by $50,000 to $200,000 after failing to meet expectations at this year’s Commonwealth Games. The announcement follows a detailed review process with funding to help in the areas of high performance leadership, coaching, international competition, training camps, pathway development and equipment and operations.

Investment allocations were based on four contestable criteria, including past performance, future potential, quality of the individual sport’s high performance programme and campaigns and aspects of the individual sport context.

Meanwhile, $500,000 will be transferred from Paralympics NZ to Athletics NZ as part of the successful integration of the para athletics programme into athletics.