Otago Daily Times

SadowskiSy­nott, Porteous joint winners in awards

Snow Sports NZ

- STAFF REPORTER & Big Air Heaven Zhang (Queenstown) Geoff Hunt (Queenstown) Bonny Teat (Wanaka) Cool Wakushima (Queenstown), Snowboard Slopestyle

THE Snow Sports New Zealand annual awards winners were announced digitally yesterday due to Covid19 Level 2 restrictio­ns.

Zoi SadowskiSy­nnott and Nico Porteous were joint winners of the overall athlete of the year.

They were the first joint winners of the award in more than a decade.

Both had strong seasons, achieving New Zealand firsts, world firsts and both landing on the podium at every competitio­n they dropped into.

In March 2021, SadowskiSy­nnott became the first person to successful­ly defend a snowboard slopestyle World Championsh­ips title.

She won the Big Air World Cup in Kreischber­g, claimed a silver medal (snowboard slopestyle) and a bronze medal (snowboard big air) at the prestigiou­s Aspen X Games and won the Jackson Hole stop of the Natural Selection Tour.

Porteous won New Zealand’s first ever X Games freeski superpipe gold medal with a neverlande­dbefore in competi

Zoi SadowskiSy­nott

tion trick combinatio­n of back to back 1620s. He went on to win the freeski halfpipe World Championsh­ips title, the first Kiwi to win this title.

Award winners

Instructor of the Year –

Men’s Masters Ski Racing Champion – Women’s Masters Ski Racing Champion – Breakthrou­gh Season –

Coach of the Year – Brad Prosser (Wanaka), freeski coach

Cross Country Athlete of the Year – Campbell Wright (Wanaka)

Alpine Ski Racer of the Year – Alice Robinson (Queenstown)

Snowboarde­r of the Year – Zoi SadowskiSy­nnott (Wanaka)

Freeskier of the Year – Nico Porteous (Wanaka)

Freeride Athlete of the Year – Blake Marshall (Queenstown)

Overall Athlete of the Year – Jointly awarded to Zoi SadowskiSy­nnott and Nico Porteous.

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Nico Porteous
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