Snow Sports NZ General Manager High Performance, Luke Hetzel says results from the campaign have been excellent and are a good sign for Milano Cortina 2026 and for the 2030 pipeline of snow sport athletes.
“Across the season the results have been outstanding and are reflected in achievements at the Park and Pipe World Champs.” says Luke.
“We were the number one gold medal winning nation, Zoi (Sadowski-Synnott) achieved her fifth consecutive podium finish and third World Champ Slopestyle title, Luca (Harrington) took out the Big Air Freestyle title and Fin Melville-Ives took out the Freeski Halfpipe in his debut World Championships.
“In addition, Zoi and Luke earned Crystal Globes (the overall points leader for the season) and Alpine skier Alice (Robinson) was a few turns away from joining them as a Crystal Globe winner.”
Those are just some of the results Luke points to from the exciting group of snow sport athletes.
What excites Luke and the Snow Sports NZ team as much as the results is the consistency of results at events across the whole season which he says demonstrates a growing maturity among the group.
“A reflection of this is the way the group stayed healthy and navigated the complexities of travel across a long season of competing at the pinnacle level,” says Luke.
“Travel can be stressful and the way the athletes, their coaches and support teams have dealt with that is a real sign of maturity in the programme. There is an increasing resilience evident among all our elite team and, importantly, behaviours and thinking that take away any complacency and collectively challenge each other. I see a real culture of progression and learning which is exciting.”
While Zoi, Luca, Fin and Alice have been grabbing the headlines, Luke says multiple athletes across the elite programme performed very well. “This is exciting because it means they are all within striking distance of the podium.”
Luke also calls out the positive performances of New Zealand’s two key para snow sport athletes. “Adam (Hall) has had a quality season with multiple podiums and Corey (Peters) achieved his first podium result since Beijing.”
A number of junior athletes also achieved great results which is making the 2030 pipeline look good says Luke.
While not wanting to get ahead of themselves, Luke says there is a quiet confidence building within the Snow Sports NZ team.
