New Zealand won its first Winter Olympics gold medal last week, and Simon Wi Rutene says it's only a matter of time before a Māori athlete has one as well.
“They're always coming through and there will be others that are coming around the edge of that. It's not if, it's when, and I'll be very proud of that.”
Wi Rutene, who participated in four Winter Olympics between 1984 and 1994, believes the likes of Tiarn Collins (Ngāi Tahu), golden girl Zoi Syndowski-Synnet, the Proteus brothers and Alice Robinson will inspire more athletes, especially with some iwi already helping their people on the snow.
He says success in these events will allow other events "and we have other Māori involved in those in many ways when we look at the Tūwharetoa academy, and Ngāti Rangi academy -and creating areas of excellence where we can practise".
“Having Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Rangi involved as part of the setup in Ruapehu and what's going on commercially around the maunga and with their investments is they're investing in their own human capability with their tamariki and whānau and lifting them up and give them all the opportunity they can.”
And he says Māori have the skills for success, whether they live near ski slopes or not.
“A lot of those Māori that aren't in those alpine regions, they're surfers, they do the manu, they can run. They've got all these natural abilities that can be combined with aerials, or sports science.”
NZ has won five medals in over 70 years of competing at the Winter Olympics. However, four of those have come in the past two games. Syndowski-Synnett this afternoon added a Silver medal in the Snowboard Big Air event to her gold medal last week, to take her personal tally to 3 medals.
Wi Rutene says the type of high-performance training on offer now for the likes of Zoi Syndowski-Synett, which includes practising high amplitude jumps into the safety of airbags, involves actions and manoeuvres is not too different from what many rangatahi Māori do in the water already.
“It allows Zoi to have the incredible prowess to land basically as big as you could manu in your life off a cliff or a dive board. If you are the 'manu monster', she's landing that on hardpack ice, not going into water.”
He says winter sports has been popular with Māori whanau, but that popularity has been increasing.
“In Wānaka, we’re seeing whanau from Tāmaki, and Northland they’re all bringing their tamariki down there to do the cross-country or the snowboarding. There are also school programs where they’re able to be involved.”
With Wi Rutene seeing Māori with many natural skills ready to transfer to the snow, the Olympic dream for rangatahi, and pakeke alike could still be alive.