New Zealand at the Winter Olympic Games
New Zealand made its first appearance at the Winter Olympic Games in Oslo, Norway in 1952 and has attended all Winter Games since then except for in 1956 in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy and 1964 in Innsbruck, Austria. New Zealand fielded a bobsleigh team at the 1988 Calgary Games which was its first entry in an Olympic winter sport other than alpine skiing.
The nation won its first medal at the 1992 Winter Games, a silver medal that shines like gold courtesy of Annelise Coberger. The feisty alpine racer placed second in the slalom event to become the first athlete from the Southern Hemisphere to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.
In 2018, the New Zealand team collected two bronze medals, which made these games its most successful Winter Games. The two bronze medals were won by Zoi Sadowski-Synnott in the women's snowboarding big air and by Nico Porteous in the men's ski halfpipe, both athletes just 16 years of age.
New Zealand's first gold medal came from snowboader Sadowski-Synnott in women's slopestyle at the 2022 Beijing Games, breaking a run of 70 years at the Winter Olympics without a gold medal. Capping off their most successful Games, Nico Porteous provided the country with their second gold medal, winning the men's freestyle skiing halfpipe.
Trivia
- The first Winter Olympic medalist from the southern hemisphere was New Zealand skier Annelise Coberger who won a silver medal in the women's slalom at Albertville in France in 1992.
Related Pages
- About Sport in New Zealand
- New Zealand at the Summer Olympics
- More Winter Olympics Countries
- Winter Olympics main page.
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