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RNZ News
6 days ago
- Sport
- RNZ News
Olympic freeski champion Nico Porteous changes career direction
Nico Porteous has won Olympic, X Games and world championship titles. Photo: AFP Olympic champion Nico Porteous will never stop pushing the boundaries on the slopes, but the competitive streak has waned and he is stepping away from freeski halfpipe in a natural career change . Porteous, 23, is New Zealand's most successful male snowsports athlete and one of the most decorated halfpipe athletes in history. At times in his competitive career, he has felt the pressure of expectation, but now he skis for the fun of it. He has Olympic, X Games and world championship titles, and World Cup medals, but in his words, he has nothing left to achieve as a competitive athlete. "That's why I felt so free to make the decision that I have made," Porteous said. "I achieved everything that I wanted to and I'm really proud of that." Porteous spent more than half his life chasing success on the snow. He started as a 10-year-old, following older brother Miguel, as he chased back-to-back winters, training and competing at Breckenridge in the USA and Cardrona Alpine Resort in New Zealand, balancing sports commitments with schoolwork. A lot has changed. "Your thinking changes, the way you look at life changes and I have followed that natural progression," Porteous said of his decision to move on from wearing silver fern on the international stage. "In the later stages there, I just lost that competitive drive and competitive passion, and found other areas of skiing that I really enjoyed." At 14, Porteous became the first New Zealander and youngest person in the world to land a triple cork 1440. Two years later, he was an Olympic bronze-medallist and a junior world champion. The following season, he claimed the first World Cup medal of his career - a silver. He then won a bronze medal at X Games Aspen and finished in second on the 2018-19 freeski halfpipe World Cup tour rankings - the best ever result at the time for a New Zealand male in the FIS Freeski rankings. Zoe Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous show off their 2018 Winter Olympics bronze medals. Photo: PHOTOSPORT At the 2021 X Games Aspen, Porteous won New Zealand's first gold medal in freeski superpipe, with a run he had worked on for 18 months that contained a trick and a trick combo - a right 1620 combined with the left 1620 - that had never been landed in competition before. He continued his success during that 2021 season to become the freeski halfpipe world champion, the first time a New Zealander had held this title. In 2022, he won X Games freeski superpipe gold and followed that up with an freeski halfpipe gold medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Last year, he claimed silver at the 2024 Aspen X Games, after taking a break from competing in 2023. Porteous' success as a teenager opened New Zealanders' eyes to what was possible from his generation of snowsports athletes, but it also took over his life. "It takes a lot of sacrifice and a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of everything," he said. "It just consumes you and and it's all you think about 24/7. "I definitely was feeling pressure. Everything that I do, I want to do my best at it and give it my all, and having that expectation can sometimes lead to some pretty stressful environments." Porteous put his head down and tried to drown out the external noise. "I think there definitely was some external pressure, but also internal pressure as well, throughout the whole time." Another Winter Olympics was not on Porteous' mind, when he announced he was leaving competitive freeskiing eight months out from the next Games at Milan. "It was just when I felt like it was right," he said. "It was on my own terms." Porteous is taking note of the up-and-coming New Zealand talent that will hopefully have success similar to his. "The success that we've seen in the past season has been crazy," he said. "All credit to those guys, they're incredible and I think it's really exciting the new era that we're coming into." With his competitive days now behind him, Porteous said he was in good shape and was not slowing down. From now on, Nico Porteous will move into different forms of skiing. Photo: PhotoSport "I'm still pushing myself every single day and skiing at the highest level I can. There's been a couple injuries along the way, but everybody goes through injuries, and I'm lucky that I'm still young and my body feels good. "By no means am I done pushing the limit skiing." Over the past couple of years, Porteous has moved into a different area of skiing - one that involves showing off his skills for the camera. "Working with videographers and producing films of me skiing, I've really enjoyed that side of skiing and it's something that, we're lucky in our sport, it can be another career path." He has also managed and produced some events, and worked on product development with some of the sponsors he built relationships with while competing. Porteous still spends a lot of time in skis. "I just go skiing for fun," he said. "It's what I love to do. "It's my passion and it's my hobby as well, just as much as it's my career. "I go out skiing, more often than not, just for fun." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
11-06-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Queenstown open for skiing action on Saturday
It is not too shabby for an opening day. NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson says both The Remarkables and Coronet Peak will open as scheduled from 9am on Saturday, with the latter opening from top to bottom. At Coronet, all the beginner conveyor lifts, the Meadows Chair and Coronet Express would be in action — Rocky Gully and Green gates would not be open, "but we'll be looking to add those in as soon as we can stitch that together". At The Remarkables, the learners' conveyors, Alta and Curvey Basin would be open for action, with Sugar Bowl and Shadow Basin still to come, Mr Anderson said. "Our whole objective in getting both mountains open on the same day is to send a really, really strong signal to the market that ... Queenstown's open for business, and hopefully you see that switch flipped and the town gets busy very quickly." Mr Anderson said last weekend's perfectly timed snowfall had been supplemented by a huge amount of snowmaking, which he believed had been the longest period of snowmaking in Queenstown for a decade. "And the new guns we've got up there, they are just incredible." At The Remarkables, for example, the whales of snow from the guns were higher than the conveyor covers. "It just gives you an idea of the amount of snow they were belting out." He estimated Coronet was opening with between 60cm and 120cm on trail, and about 60cm at The Remarkables. "We're kind of expecting the locals to come out in force once they hear how good the on-trail skiing is ... It'll be nice to get a bit of a dump before school holidays, but with or without it, we're going to have a good school holidays, I can see that." Cardrona, which along with Treble Cone is owned by Queenstown-based company RealNZ, will also open on Saturday. Chief mountains officer Laura Hedley said thanks to an "incredible effort" from the snowmaking team, and some help from Mother Nature, the McDougall's Chondola and the learner conveyors would be spinning. Skiers and boarders would be able to access McDougalls' trail and the beginners' area from Saturday, while the North Face Cardrona parks crew would also put in a few features in McPark, the temporary early-season terrain park under McDougalls. "Our new base area building is nearing completion, and we are aiming to get our new Cardrona Corner retail shop open on Saturday, too," Ms Hedley said. To reflect the early season offering, Cardies day passes will be at early season rates until Whitestar Express opens. Treble Cone is scheduled to open on June 28.
Otago Daily Times
11-06-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Open for skiing action on Saturday
It is not too shabby for an opening day. NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson says both The Remarkables and Coronet Peak will open as scheduled from 9am on Saturday, with the latter opening from top to bottom. At Coronet, all the beginner conveyor lifts, the Meadows Chair and Coronet Express would be in action — Rocky Gully and Green gates would not be open, "but we'll be looking to add those in as soon as we can stitch that together". At The Remarkables, the learners' conveyors, Alta and Curvey Basin would be open for action, with Sugar Bowl and Shadow Basin still to come, Mr Anderson said. "Our whole objective in getting both mountains open on the same day is to send a really, really strong signal to the market that ... Queenstown's open for business, and hopefully you see that switch flipped and the town gets busy very quickly." Mr Anderson said last weekend's perfectly timed snowfall had been supplemented by a huge amount of snowmaking, which he believed had been the longest period of snowmaking in Queenstown for a decade. "And the new guns we've got up there, they are just incredible." At The Remarkables, for example, the whales of snow from the guns were higher than the conveyor covers. "It just gives you an idea of the amount of snow they were belting out." He estimated Coronet was opening with between 60cm and 120cm on trail, and about 60cm at The Remarkables. "We're kind of expecting the locals to come out in force once they hear how good the on-trail skiing is ... It'll be nice to get a bit of a dump before school holidays, but with or without it, we're going to have a good school holidays, I can see that." Cardrona, which along with Treble Cone is owned by Queenstown-based company RealNZ, will also open on Saturday. Chief mountains officer Laura Hedley said thanks to an "incredible effort" from the snowmaking team, and some help from Mother Nature, the McDougall's Chondola and the learner conveyors would be spinning. Skiers and boarders would be able to access McDougalls' trail and the beginners' area from Saturday, while the North Face Cardrona parks crew would also put in a few features in McPark, the temporary early-season terrain park under McDougalls. "Our new base area building is nearing completion, and we are aiming to get our new Cardrona Corner retail shop open on Saturday, too," Ms Hedley said. To reflect the early season offering, Cardies day passes will be at early season rates until Whitestar Express opens. Treble Cone is scheduled to open on June 28.
Otago Daily Times
26-04-2025
- Climate
- Otago Daily Times
Upgrades entice more skiers as season start approaches
As the leaves change colour and the winds get colder, Wānaka skifields are preparing for another busy winter season. The first alpine snowfall in the region occurred last week and the area's ski resorts have been working hard to ensure they have sufficient capacity for the upcoming season. Cardrona and Treble Cone general manager Laura Hedley said numbers had been going up for a few years and the resort had had to make some changes to accommodate the increasing demand. One of the biggest changes skiers could expect this season was 60ha of new terrain with a new six-seater express lift in the Soho Basin. "The team have been working all summer, actually over the past two summers on that, and we've been doing some trail design, so it's a pretty amazing basin to open up." The upgrade came as increased interest in the resort pushed the limits of both staff and infrastructure. "So we actually put in capacity management over the last two years to manage a better guest experience" she said. The resort is also building a new food and beverage building and retail store to take the pressure off lifts in the main basin. Ms Hedley said they already had high numbers in the pre-bookings which she suspected was partly due to people's excitement over the new terrain. "Yeah, we're seeing good numbers in our pre-bookings ... but all we know is from the last two years managing that capacity we had more people than that before. "So there is an excess demand of people wanting to ski," she said. Although she was disappointed that the skifields would not be hosting the Winter Games this year, she said there were still several events and activities for skiers of varying levels to look forward to. For the more experienced skiers, the Josie Wells Invitational sees some of the world's best skiers coming to the Cardrona slopes to show off their skills Although the slopes are a haven for athletes, they are also open for school activities and family passes. Cardrona and Treble Cone are not the only ones hard at work to cater for an increase in skiers coming to Wānaka. Snow Farm has also highlighted the changes it has made over the last few years including their new Musterers Hut and infrastructure upgrades to better maintain their trails. To prepare for this year's snow season they are working on a new toilet block with the Queenstown Lakes District Council and introducing more robust water storage and solar electric systems.
