⁠Winners from the ninth annual New Zealand Sport and Recreation Awards held on 11 April 2016 include:

Event Excellence Award

Winner: ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, New Zealand Cricket

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 was jointly hosted between New Zealand and Australia and was the second cricket world cup hosted by New Zealand and Australia, the last being 1992.

23 out of the 49 tournament matches, including a semi-final, were held in seven New Zealand cities.  Christchurch and its newly redeveloped Hagley Oval hosted the opening match and opening ceremony of the tournament, a role often reserved for much larger venues.

The event was hailed as ‘the most popular in history’ attracting over 40,000 international visitors to New Zealand for the tournament and its ancillary events. The tournament was one of the largest broadcast sports events in history, with a global reach of well over 1.5 billion.

Finalists
FIFA U-20 World Cup 2015, New Zealand Football
The Ultimate Waterman 2015, Surfing New Zealand

Community Impact Award

Winner: Kaiti Hill Mt Everest Challenge, Sport Gisborne Tairawhiti and Sean Shivnan Pharmacy

Encouraging over 870 people to walk, cycle or run Mount Everest is no mean feat, but Sean Shivnan and his wife Fiona have been doing it every year, between September and October, for over three years. For the last two, the event has had the support of Sport Gisborne Tairawhiti and grown from the 150 entrants in 2013.

The aim is to climb the 130m up Kaiti Hill in Gisborne 68 times, the equivalent of climbing the 8,840m high Mt Everest. The event is free, so removing the barrier of cost and inspiring families to get active and fit for summer.

Finalists
Cricket Smart, New Zealand Cricket
Marriotts Sport Leadership Programme, Sport Canterbury

Communication Excellence Award

Winner: She Loves Golf, New Zealand Golf

She Loves Golf was a bold, sassy promotional campaign run in November 2015 to inspire women nationwide to sign up to play golf. This was the first time New Zealand Golf had undertaken a national drive to promote the game. At the heart of its communication was a push to change people’s perception of the sport and increase participation.

Using young influential female personalities such as Lydia Ko, Toni Street, Amber Peebles and teenage You Tube blogger Jamie Curry, the month-long campaign included events, promotions and offers in clubs and driving ranges throughout the country especially tailored for women. As a result of the She Loves Golf initiatives 10,000 females engaged with the game of golf in November.

Finalists
The North Face, NZ Freeski Open, Snow Sports NZ

Innovation Excellence Award

Winner: The Ultimate Waterman 2015, Surfing New Zealand

The Ultimate Waterman splashed down in New Zealand for the first time in 2015. In a global first and after four years of development led by Greg Townsend, the event brought together the world’s finest watermen to compete in eight different surfing disciplines over nine days.

The invitation-only contest is weather dependent, adopting a spontaneous approach where the weather forecasters and other experts seek out the best location for the day’s events, wherever they may be along some of the world’s stunning coastline.

Finalists
Crossing the Line, Sport Bay of Plenty
Virtually on Track, Sport Bay of Plenty

High Performance Campaign Award

Winner: All Blacks 2015 Rugby World Cup Campaign, New Zealand Rugby

There was only one outcome for New Zealand Rugby and the All Blacks and that was to win Rugby World Cup 2015. The high performance campaign focused on ‘going where no team had gone before’ and included becoming the first All Blacks team to win the Rugby World Cup away from home, the first team to win back-to-back Rugby World Cups, to be ranked number one in the world since the end of 2009 and equal the world record of consecutive test wins.

Four critical success factors were agreed on by members of the All Black management team. Alignment was seen as a critical factor in the success of any team, so one of the four factors was to build a single team made up of the players, the All Blacks management team, the families of the players and management, New Zealand Rugby’s Board, New Zealand Rugby’s Executive Team, New Zealand Rugby’s Business Teams (High Performance, Player Services, Commercial and Public Affairs), Super Rugby Teams, Sponsors and Sky.

Finalists
Lisa Carrington – World Championships 2015, Canoe Racing New Zealand
Peter Burling and Blair Tuke – World Championships 2015, Yachting New Zealand

Commercial Partnership Award

Winner: Winter Games NZ and Audi NZ

Positioned as one of the top five winter sports events in the world, the Audi quattro Winter Games New Zealand features the world’s elite snow sports athletes.

In 2013, Audi New Zealand entered a successful partnership with the games held biennially in Queenstown, Lake Wanaka and Naseby creating ‘The Audi quattro Winter Games NZ’.

Following the the 2013 event, Audi NZ and Winter Games NZ jointly approached Audi Germany to become the naming sponsor for 2015 and 2017. The resultant sponsorship was a major coup in terms of taking a local sponsorship to a global level, based on a sound case developed to prove the benefit to Audi and the capability of Winter Games NZ to deliver a quality, high profile event.

Finalists
Badminton New Zealand and SKYCITY
Sport Northland and Top Energy

Sport Maker Award

Winner: Patrick Rimene

Volunteers are the life blood of sport and without them so much grassroots sport in this country simply couldn’t happen.

The Lotto Sport Maker award recognises and rewards volunteers, or Sport Makers as we call them, to encourage them to keep doing what they’re doing and to inspire others to get involved too.

Patrick is a coach and organiser at the Wairarapa Waka Ama Canoe club and coaches both kids and adult crews five days a week, fitting around his own waka ama training and his full-time job. Patrick is respected as a coach and leader at the club and is always going the extra mile for the kids he coaches and the community.

C.K. Doig Leadership Award

Winner: Brent Eastwood

The C.K. Doig Leadership Award recognises outstanding leadership by an executive sport or recreation leader in relation to their organisation or the sector as a whole.

As Chief Executive of Sport Northland Brent has been the driving force behind the redevelopment of a number of key community facilities, creating a remarkable legacy and helping to propel participation in sport in the Northland region. Community facilities Brent has supported include the Whangarei Aquatic Centre, ASB Leisure Centre, ASB Sports Arena and more recently the Kauri Coast Sportsville project.

Brent’s work is driven by a desire to get Northlanders more active, firmly believing that sport can enhance and enrich people and communities.

Lifetime Achievement Award recipients

Kerry Clark OBE

Player, manager, administrator, leader, visionary – Kerry Clark has done it all in his sport.

Kerry is renowned throughout the world of bowls as a doer, a man who gets things done and he has become a highly respected advisor in the sports sector, an astute and knowledgeable trailblazer who uses his expertise to contribute to a number of industry organisations.

View the full citation here (pdf)

Steve McKean MNZM

There was a time when the name Steve McKean was synonymous with his sport.

Like McCaw or McCullum, of 2016 vintage, another ‘Mc’ appeared to be everywhere in his day, as a coach, a commentator, a mentor. Steve was the face, the voice and the name of basketball in New Zealand in the 1970s and early 80s.

45 years ago he touched down in New Zealand from the United States, taking up a contract as a player/coach for Auckland club Panmure. It was the beginning of a long and successful association with basketball, and sport, in New Zealand. Neither party has regretted the association and both have hugely benefited from it.

View the full citation here (pdf)

Katie Sadleir

As a child of the Commonwealth, it is perhaps fitting that Katie achieved her greatest honour as an athlete at the Commonwealth Games.

Born in Scotland, raised in Canada, Katie made her home in New Zealand, and represented us in synchronised swimming at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, finishing 37th in the women’s solo and 12th in the women’s duet, competing with her sister Lynette.

Two years later she was again back in New Zealand colours at the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, winning a bronze medal in the women’s solo synchronised swimming.

View the full citation here (pdf)