Wanaka paralympian Adam Hall and Wanaka resident and former All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen are in the running for Decade Champions in the 2021 Halberg Awards.

The Halberg Foundation has announced it will honour the sporting champions of the past decade as the centrepiece of the ISPS Halberg Awards.

The Halberg Awards Decade Champions is a celebration of outstanding New Zealand sporting achievements from 2010 to 2019 and the champions will be recognised during a ceremony on Thursday 18 February 2021 at Spark Arena.

Previous Halberg Awards winners across eight categories will vie for the decade champion honours. The supreme Halberg Award winner of the decade will join the previous decade champions, including 1950s Dame Yvette Corlett (nee Williams) (athletics); 1960s Sir Peter Snell (athletics); 1970s Sir John Walker (athletics); 1980s Sir Richard Hadlee (cricket); 1990s Danyon Loader (swimming); and 2000s Carolyn Meyer and Georgina Earl (nee Evers-Swindell) (rowing).

Additional to the supreme Halberg Award champion, for the first time Halberg will also recognise category winners of the decade in the celebrations across the categories of team, para athlete (including Adam Hall), sportswoman, sportsman, coach (Sir Steve Hansen) and emerging talent athlete.

Sir Steve Hansen PHOTO: ultimaterugby.com

The public will have a say and be able to vote on New Zealand’s favourite sporting moment of the decade. The Sport New Zealand Leadership Award and Hall of Fame inductees will form part of the February celebrations.

The Halberg decade champion independent voting academy, made up of prominent athletes, coaches, administrators and sports media, will review the finalists to decide the decade winners.

With international sporting events being severely affected in 2020, the Halberg Foundation decided it will include performances of merit from 2020 into the 2021 sporting year.

Named after Olympic champion Sir Murray Halberg (ONZ, MBE), the Halberg Awards is the country's preeminent event to honour and celebrate New Zealand sporting excellence, and provides the foundation with a flagship fundraising opportunity for a charity which aims to enhance the lives of physically disabled New Zealanders by enabling them to participate in sport and recreation.