Snow Sports NZ Annual Awards Winners Announced

The Snow Sports NZ Annual Awards Night were held at the Lake Wanaka Centre this evening. Alpine Ski Racer Alice Robinson (Queenstown) was awarded the title of Overall Athlete of the Year.

Snow Sports NZ is pleased to announce the following winners.

• Instructor of the Year – Rowan Pemberton (Queenstown)
• Men’s Masters Ski Racing Champion – Perry Coulter (Queenstown)
• Women’s Masters Ski Racing Champion – Bonny Teat (Wanaka)
• Breakthrough Season – Margaux Hackett (Wanaka), Freeski Slopestyle & Big Air
• Coach of the Year – Chris Knight (Christchurch), Alpine Ski Racing
• Cross Country Athlete of the Year – Campbell Wright (Wanaka)
• Alpine Ski Racer of the Year – Alice Robinson (Queenstown)
• Adaptive Snow Sports Athlete of the Year – Corey Peters (New Plymouth)
• Snowboarder of the Year – Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (Wanaka)
• Freeskier of the Year – Nico Porteous (Wanaka)
• Freeride Athlete of the Year – Craig Murray (Wanaka) & Jess Hotter (Ohakune)
• Overall Athlete of the Year – Alice Robinson, Alpine Ski Racing

This year’s Awards encompassed a 12-month timeframe including the 2019/20 Northern Hemisphere season and the 2020 Southern Hemisphere season. 

It has been another hugely successful year for Snow Sports NZ, albeit slightly shorter than previous years due to Covid-19 cutting the Northern season short.

Alice Robinson opened the season with a historical win in Austria at the Soelden Giant Slalom World Cup in October 2019. She became the youngest person ever to win a World Cup at this venue and it was New Zealand’s first Alpine Ski Racing World Cup win since 1997. Alice went on to win her second Giant Slalom World Cup in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia in February this year. 

Jess Hotter and Craig Murray were announced as the joint winners of the Freeride Athlete of the Year award. It is very unusual for two athletes to jointly win the title, but with both having outstanding results this year on the Freeride World Tour, there was no way to separate them. They both took a win on the Freeride World Tour this year with Jess winning in Kicking Horse, Canada and Craig in Fieberbrunn, Austria. 

Zoi Sadowski-Synnott won an Winter X Games gold medal for Snowboard Slopestyle in Norway in March this year and Margaux Hackett (Breakthrough Season Winner) had two fourth place finishes at Freeski Big Air World Cups.

Attendees of this year’s Snow Sports NZ Annual Awards were entertained by two panels of athletes answering a variety of questions from our MC Ed Leigh. The panel included Jossi Wells, Olympian and six-time X Games medallist is a Slopestyle and Big Air freeskier, Finn Bilous,  member of the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic team, Slopestyle and Big Air freeski specialist, Freeride World Qualifier competitor and local all round shredder and Jess Hotter, Freeride world tour athlete. They were joined by Willis Feasey, Tiarn Collins and Billy Dravitzki.

About Snow Sports NZ Overall Athlete of the Year –  Alice Robinson 

Alice made history on the 26th of October 2019, when she won the FIS World Cup Giant Slalom race in Soelden, becoming the first skier born in this century to win an Alpine Ski World Cup race and New Zealand’s only Alpine World Cup gold medal since 1997. She carried the momentum from this win through her season and had a following three top ten finishes before landing on top of the podium once again at the Kranjska Gora World Cup Giant Slalom in February this year. Alice is racing next Saturday night in Soelden to open her 2021 Season.