Finalists ‘show quality’ of region’s athletes
Olympic and world champions will be up against national record breakers when the Taranaki Sportsperson of the Year is revealed tonight.
Finalists include Winter Paralympic gold medal winner Corey Peters, who completed his set of medals when he won the men’s sitting down downhill at Beijing. This finished a remarkable campaign that was interrupted by Covid-19 and saw him miss the world championships in the lead-up.
Peters, the 2015 Taranaki Sportsperson of the Year, described his performance as ‘‘the run of my life’’ as it capped off the silver medal he won in Sochi in 2014 and the bronze he took four years later in Pyeongchang.
The 38-year-old faces competition in the senior men’s division from world champion axeman Jack Jordan, who chopped through international competition to win the Stihl Timbersports World Trophy in Austria in May.
Black Caps batsman Will Young, All Blacks utility back Jordie Barrett, national champion surfer Daniel Farr and Eisenhower Trophy team member Sam Jones, who led the Taranaki golf team to its first ever national title, also feature in the category.
The senior sportswoman title will also be hotly contested, with Olympic Sevens gold medallist Michaela Blyde up against New Zealand’s fastest ever sprinter Zoe Hobbs, Football Ferns representative Mackenzie Barry and Black Sticks hockey representative Hope Ralph.
Hobbs broke the New Zealand 100m record five times from December 2021 to July 2022, breaking the Oceania 100m record twice in the process,
Blyde, who was Taranaki Sportsperson of the Year in 2018, was also part of the team’s silver winning performance at the Sevens Rugby World Cup and the teams’ bronze winning Commonwealth Games outing, where she was top try scorer.
The senior sports team, another category which qualifies the winner for the overall top prize, features the Taranaki men’s golf side which won the interprovincial trophy, the first time in its 73-year history.
The Taranaki Airs are also a finalist in the senior sports team category after the basketball side finished top of the league in the regular season before
being beaten in the semifinals.
There are 13 categories featured at the awards, including junior sportsman and sportswoman, as well as coach of the year. The winners will be announced during a ticketed event taking place in New Plymouth’s Devon Hotel from 6pm.
‘‘The calibre of finalists nominated this year shows the depth and quality we have across all sections of sport in Taranaki,’’ Sport Taranaki chief executive Michael Carr said.
‘‘It also shows the tremendous work that goes into producing athletes who can compete right across the world and the work that goes in behind the scenes from the tireless volunteers and coaches who make it all happen through their selfless endeavour.’’