Best of the best
Some years, the Halberg Award winners are pretty obvious, such as last year when Emirates Team New Zealand won the supreme award for its America’s Cup triumph and in 2015 when the All Blacks won after back-to-back World Cups.
But this year’s race is wide open with plenty of top contenders but no one, clear standout. It is also incredibly difficult to compare top performances in different sports.
Does winning a Winter Olympics bronze medal (only Annelise Coberger had previously won a Winter Olympics medal for New Zealand) outweigh Scott Dixon’s fifth IndyCar Championship or shot put gold medals for Tom Walsh at the Commonwealth Games and World Indoor Championships?
Or does Lisa Carrington deserve to repeat her 2016 supreme Halberg Award triumph after claiming a gold and three silvers at the Canoe Sprint World Championships? And what about the Women’s Under-17 Football team’s astonishing third at the World Cup?
Plenty of tough decisions must be made.