New Zealand bobsleigh programme is to discontinue

NZ Bobsleigh programme on ice

The New Zealand bobsleigh programme is to discontinue

The dream of seeing a New Zealand team compete at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, will not be realised. The bobsleigh team unfortunately did not reach the challenging performance goals set for the campaign, and does not therefore qualify for continued funding and support.

This will end the team’s current campaign for the forthcoming Olympics.

Each stage of the campaign required objectives to be met to receive further investment and qualification for Olympic consideration. An unfortunate crash at the World Championships in the United States in February left the four man New Zealand bobsleigh team without a crucial driver, meaning they were unable to compete, and therefore to meet one of the performance benchmarks set by the government agency Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC).

Resourcing an internationally competitive programme of this nature requires significant funding. Unfortunately due to the crash at the World Championships, and the current financial climate, the campaign has proven unrealistic to continue.

However, while the news is a blow to the six athletes who had been competing, NZ Academy of Sport South Island (ASI) Winter Programme Director Ashley Light said their success was never-the-less remarkable over a very short time frame.

“We’re proud of the programme, and of the lengths the athletes and stakeholders went to succeed at the level they did,” he said. The athletes had achieved some very good times, statistics that were encouraging enough to attract a world-class coach to assist them.”

Although this project did not achieve its goal of a top 16 at the 2009 World Championships, the team demonstrated clear potential for the result, which may well have been achieved but for the training crash.

“We learnt very valuable information in that time, but the risk associated with reliance on one driver and the costs and time constraints of developing a second driver before 2010 is unrealistic.”

Mr Light said many positives resulted from the project., and several innovative and successful elements would be applied in future sporting projects.

In particular, advertising would be used to attract the talent to the programme, and objective internationally benchmarked data would be used to set high standards. Staged projects with Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) will also continue to be used in future projects.

The project was one of several talent projects supported by SPARC aiming to develop athletes for the future, looking a to identify and transfer talent from other sports to get world-class results. “We used an innovative programme that proved very successful in identifying athletes with the potential to achieve in bobsleigh, and the fact that these men were then good enough to compete at a world championship event after only eight months confirms the approach was sound. “

The Academy South Island, works in partnership with the other parts of the NZAS Network and SPARC to provide high performance support, services and advise to athletes, coaches and other personnel. The focus is on excellence - helping our top athletes achieve optimal performances.

ENDS

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