What an incredible weekend of sport, with the T20 Cricket World Cup, Super Rugby Pacific, and SailGP sweeping into Auckland – more on that in a minute - some of the world’s best trail runners hit Rotorua for the Tarawera Premier Ultra-trail Marathon and the Winter Olympics continues to provide stunning performances, triumphs and disappointments, scandals and feel good moments.   

I’ve been interested in the chat around the Winter Olympics over the last week.  

The Winter Olympic Games is often criticised for being filled with elite, niche sports that struggle to capture broad public appeal. Unlike the Summer edition, which features globally accessible competitions like athletics, swimming and football, the Winter Games is based on disciplines which require specific climates, facilities, and funding.  

Sports such as biathlon (cross-country skiing and shooting), snowboard cross (kind of BMX racing for snowboarders), and curling are unfamiliar to many viewers outside Europe and North America. They demand snow tracks, ice rinks, and mountain ranges - resources unavailable in much of the world. As a result, participation is concentrated among a relatively small group of nations, reinforcing the perception that these are rarefied pursuits rather than widely played global sports. 

But for me, this exclusivity underscores why these athletes deserve celebration. Winter Olympians dedicate their lives to mastering extraordinarily demanding disciplines under harsh conditions. They train for years in sub-zero temperatures and in many cases risk injury at high speeds as they refine their skills in sports where success is often decided by fractions of a second or points.  

The limited global infrastructure for many of these sports makes reaching elite level even more impressive; pathways are narrower, funding scarcer, and margins for error smaller.  

That they are largely broadcast on pay tv in New Zealand also fuels the idea these sports aren’t hugely common. But uncommon or not, if you’ve been watching over the last week, surely you’ll agree the camera work has been spectacular and the events have been incredible to watch.  

My whole family have become obsessed with ice dancing and figure skating - and there have been some serious controversies and sides taken during the week, even though none of us could get ourselves around an ice rink.   

And really, isn’t all sport at the top-end of competition elite - or as we like to call it ‘high performance sport’? On the global stage, rugby is niche. So is netball. The America’s Cup is an elite sport, and the coast to coast this weekend attracts a small number of super athletes who will traverse the South Island. Doesn't make their accomplishments any less impressive.  

The Olympics exists not merely to platform the most popular sports, but to honour excellence at the highest level. That some of those sports are not broadly accessible does not diminish the skill required to compete. In the last week we’ve seen human resilience, sportsmanship, courage, and technical mastery - all done in what can be very challenging environments. 

So niche or not, our Kiwi athletes and their fellow competitors represent the pinnacle of their disciplines - and that alone warrants recognition and celebration.  

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