Winter Games boss living the dream
WHEN Marty Toomey began a physical education degree at Otago University in 1982, he thought he would be a teacher.
Fast forward 40 years and the sports administrator lives the dream in Wanaka, helping create a professional pathway for high performance snow sports athletes.
Mr Toomey was appointed Winter Games NZ chief executive in 2018, after six years at the helm of Snow Sports NZ.
Earlier this year, he was New Zealand’s chef de mission at the Beijing Winter Olympics, where New Zealand park and pipe athletes Zoi SadowskiSynnott and Nico Porteous each collected a gold medal.
‘‘I’ve been a long time in high performance sport. I didn’t know I intended to start down that path. I thought I was going to be a teacher. But then I decided against that and did postgrad and then went out consulting,’’ he said.
Mr Toomey began his career working at Dunedin’s Human Performance Centre, doing fitness assessments on athletes from All Blacks to shearers.
After a stint with Otago Rugby, he spent eight years as the All Blacks’ fitness trainer.
‘‘That was pretty cool. It was going through a transition from amateur to professional. That was a pretty radical change. They were talking about a rebel World Cup and all that sort of thing.
‘‘It was transformative for the players. They went from playing a little bit of rugby to fulltime,’’ he said.
The snow sports transition was a ‘‘long, long burn’’ in comparison, he said.
‘‘It has been about consistency with coaching and [Snow Sports NZ park and pipe programme head coach] Tom Wilmott has helped solidify that,’’ Mr Toomey said.
Post rugby, Mr Toomey worked in Auckland and Wellington for sports organisations including High Performance Sport NZ.
After taking the reins of Snow Sports NZ in 2012, Mr Toomey began observing Winter Games NZ board meetings and took up
International Skiing Federation (FIS) committee roles.
No New Zealander had won a Winter Olympics gold medal and he wanted to help change that.
High performance systems and a fouryear development cycle were introduced and in 2018, New Zealand had its most successful Winter Olympic result to date, with SadowskiSynnott and Porteous each collecting a bronze medal in PyeongChang.
Mr Toomey felt his Snow Sports NZ job was done and moved on to lead the Winter Games NZ event team through the next fouryear cycle.
The first year [2018] was ‘‘awesome’’, he said, not just for the Olympic bronze medals but because Wanaka hosted the FIS Junior World Freeski and Snowboard Championships, ‘‘an amazing building block’’ for teenage athletes.
Winter Games NZ also became an annual event in 2018, giving athletes and coaches a programme that built towards the big pinnacles.
More than 700 athletes competed in the games in 2019.
At the time, it was considered the premier winter sports event in the southern hemisphere.
The games showcased 26 events across several codes in a fortnight.
‘‘We had two great years, 2018 and 2019. Then 2020 came along, as did Covid. That meant we had to change things. We could only use domestic athletes because our borders were shut . . . and so we came up with an innovative new team event we called Obsidian.
‘‘That is something we will build on in future years. We will have an international [Obsidian] event and we are really, really looking forward to delivering that in 2023,’’ he said.
After two years of no show, the Winter Games returns on August 27, with 16 events and 430 athletes from 26 countries.
It is smaller than in 2019, not just because of Covid, but because it is the start of a new fouryear plan leading to the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics 2026.
Disciplines over the next 16 days include alpine skiing, halfpipe, slopestyle, freeride and a stomp series.
The biggest competitions are two alpine skiing Continental Cup events between Australia and New Zealand.
Crosscountry skiing is not included this year because of a decision in 2020, preCovid, that not enough New Zealand crosscountry athletes were coming through.
‘‘That’s not to say we won’t revisit it in the future.’’
Nor is there an adaptive event this year.
An adaptive alpine skiing Continental Cup had been considered but the Australian athletes were not available until September.
Next year, the FIS Junior
World Championships return to New Zealand.
World cup events are planned for 2024 and 2025.
Whatever happens over the next three weeks, it will be the first step for many Kiwis prospecting for gold, and Mr Toomey cannot wait to watch them.
‘‘I love seeing athletes perform at their very best, no matter what that sport is . . .
‘‘ To see that happen, to provide the stage and see people perform on it is the ultimate reward for anyone in events,’’ Mr Toomey said. will