Top Central Otago honour to SadowskiSynnott
WANAKA golden girl Zoi SadowskiSynnott has won Central Otago’s supreme sports award.
SadowskiSynnott (21) won the Bruce Grant Memorial Trophy last night, ahead of a clutch of outstanding snow sport athletes and coaches from the Central Otago area.
The awards celebrates sporting success from April 1 last year to the end of March this year.
They were announced in Wanaka last night.
The past year has been one of many successes for SadowskiSynnott as she picked up awards from all parts of the globe.
Her coach Sean Thompson was named coach of the year last night.
In December last year, SadowskiSynnott claimed victory in the women’s snowboard slopestyle event at the inviteonly Winter Dew Tour in Copper Mountain, Colorado. Then in January, she finished second in the slopestyle event at the United States Grand Prix World Cup event in California.
She backed that up with gold medals in both the slopestyle event and the big air event at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado.
Then in the main event of the season, she won the gold medal in the slopestyle event at the Beijing Winter Olympics. She followed up her gold with a silver in the Big Air, becoming the first New Zealander to win multiple medals at a Winter Olympics.
She beat off some stiff competition to win last night’s award.
Fivetime Paralympic Winter Olympics medallist and alpine skier Adam Hall was voted as top paraathlete while Winter Olympics goldmedal winning freeskier Nico Porteous won as senior sportsman.
All three live in Wanaka. Other winners. —
Junior sportswoman: Ruby Andrews (Queenstown, freeski slopestyle); junior sportsman: Gustav Legnavsky (Wanaka, freeski halfpipe). Spirit awards: Neve Spooner (Alexandra, junior), Ben Richards (Wanaka, senior). Team: Wakatipu High School/Whakatipu Rowing Club under16 boys coxed quad: Toby Rorrison, Xavier Small, Ashton White, Marley King Smith and Emily Howick. John Fitzharris Trophy (top administrator): Malcolm Jones (cricket).
A gold medal in the slopestyle competition at the Beijing Winter Olympics was among Zoi SadowskiSynnott’s many achievements in the year to the end of March.