Young Wānaka athletes Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous have been announced as joint winners of the Snow Sports NZ Overall Athlete of the Year, the first time in more than a decade the award has been shared.

The Snow Sports NZ Annual Awards winners were announced by email today (Friday October 15) as Covid-19 alert level two restrictions meant the annual awards night could not take place. 

Zoi also was awarded Snowboarder of the Year and Nico was awarded Freeskier of the Year.

Other Wānaka winners were Bonny Teat (Women’s Masters Ski Racing Champion), Campbell Wright (Cross Country Athlete of the Year), and freeski coach Brad Prosser (Coach of the Year).

The judges said “Zoi and Nico's exceptional achievements simply couldn’t be separated”.

Both athletes had phenomenal seasons, achieving New Zealand firsts, world firsts and both landing on the podium at every competition they dropped into.  

Nico Porteous PHOTO: Matt Cherubino

Zoi became the first person to successfully defend a Snowboard Slopestyle World Championships title in March 2021. She won the Big Air World Cup in Kreischberg, claimed a silver medal (Snowboard Slopestyle) and a bronze medal (Snowboard Big Air) at the prestigious Aspen X Games and won the Jackson Hole stop of the Natural Selection Tour.  

Nico won New Zealand’s first ever X Games Freeski SuperPipe gold medal with a never landed before in competition trick combination of back to back 1620s. Nico went on to win the Freeski Halfpipe World Championship

Snow Sports NZ CEO and high performance director Nic Cavanagh said he was incredibly proud of all the athletes for their achievements in what has been a challenging year.

Other winners were: Instructor of the Year, Heaven Zhang (Queenstown); Men’s Masters Ski Racing Champion, Geoff Hunt (Queenstown); Breakthrough Season, Cool Wakushima (Queenstown); Alpine Ski Racer of the Year, Alice Robinson (Queenstown); and Freeride Athlete of the Year, Blake Marshall (Queenstown).

This year’s awards encompassed a 12-month timeframe including the 2020/21 Northern Hemisphere season and the 2021 Southern Hemisphere season.   

The Snow Sports adaptive athletes remained in New Zealand last summer and worked on strength and conditioning, cross training and mental skills. As they didn’t compete during this awards period both the athletes and award organisers made the decision not to award an Adaptive Snow Sports Athlete of the year for 2021.