Credit / Sky Sport
Aotearoa's Nico Porteous freeski half-pipe gold medal has been celebrated with a 'snow haka' by his New Zealand Winter Olympic teammates in China, with the 20-year-old saying the haka is one of the things he will 'never forget in his life'.
Porteous won the men's halfpipe final at the Beijing Games on Saturday (NZ time) after his superb first run score topped the leader board at Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou.
Along with teammate Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, who won New Zealand's first-ever Winter Olympic gold earlier in the games and then followed it up with a silver, the pair have re-written the sporting history books ensuring this is Aotearoa's greatest ever winter games.
In honour of Porteous' gold, his teammates paid tribute with what the Washington Post's Ava Wallace said she could only describe as a 'snow haka'.
"Something I've definitely never seen before: after kiwi Nico Porteous takes gold in men's half-pipe, the NZL team does what I can only describe as a snow Haka. I hope they showed that on tv," Wallace said in a tweet.
Porteous said the celebratory haka meant the world to him.
"You know, New Zealand and the haka and to have that moment, I mean, there are so many things I'll never forget in my life and that will be one of them," he told Channel 7.