Click photo to enlarge
Valerie Vili won the Halberg Award and Sportswoman of the
year at the Halberg Awards, Auckland, New Zealand. Credit:
NZPA / David Rowland.
Female athletes were the big winners in Auckland tlast
night with Valerie Vili capturing New Zealand's ultimate
sporting prize, the Halberg Award, for the third consecutive
year.
Just for good measure, former Olympic and world rowing
champions Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell were crowned
sports champions of the decade.
Vili, the 25-year-old world, Olympic, Commonwealth and New
Zealand shot put champion, was the dominant individual figure
at the annual Halberg Awards dinner.
After repeating her performance of the previous three years
by winning the sportswoman of the year category, joining
board sailor Barbara Kendall as a four-time winner, Vili went
on to claim the supreme award. In so doing she became only
the second person behind champion rower Rob Waddell to
complete a hat-trick of Halberg Awards and the first female
to capture the big trophy -- first won by cricketer Bert
Sutcliffe in 1949 -- three times.
Other category winners she headed off for the major award
were four-time world single scull rowing champion Mahe
Drysdale and the world champion rowing pair of Eric Murray
and Hamish Bond, who were unbeaten in their first year as a
pair at elite level, winners of the sportsman and sports team
categories respectively.
The Evers-Swindell twins completed a golden night for rowing
when they were announced as the sports champions of the
decade -- heading off the respective Halberg Award winners
from 2000-09, including Vili.
In the end, back-to-back double scull Olympic gold medals by
the sisters gave them the edge over the other contenders.
Drysdale and Vili were both unbeaten in international
competition in 2009, retained their world championship crowns
and were also acclaimed by their international federations
with Drysdale voted male rower of the year by world rowing's
governing body and Vili one of five finalists for the IAAF
'female athlete of the year' award.
The other finalists in the sportswoman category were also
current world champions -- Sophie Pascoe (swimming), Alison
Shanks (track cycling) and Sarah Walker (BMX cycling).
In the sportsman of the year category, Drysdale headed off
Scott Dixon (motor sport), Duncan Grant (rowing), Richie
McCaw (rugby) and Daniel Vettori (cricket) while Murray and
Bond beat the All Whites soccer team, rowing's lightweight
double scull team of Storm Uru and Peter Taylor and the 420
yachting crew of Alexandra Maloney and Bianca
Barbarich-Bacher.
Dick Tonks, who coached Drysdale and the men's pair to world
championships titles, won the coach of the year category head
of Ricki Herbert (soccer), Kirsten Hellier (athletics) and
Tim Carswell (cycling).
