November 17, 2024 • 18 mins
On August 9 2021, the day after the Tokyo Olympics ended, cyclist Olivia Podmore died in a suspected suicide.
Podmore had represented New Zealand in the 2016 Olympics, but was not selected five years later.
Her death sparked shock throughout the close knit cycling community and wider sporting network, and the culture at Cycling NZ was eventually investigated.
Now, over three years later, a coronial inquiry into Podmore’s death is due to begin today.
NZ Herald reporter Tom Dillane has been covering the story for the last three years, and joins us today on The Front Page to discuss Olivia Podmore’s life, career, and her tragic death.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
Suicide and depression help services:
If it is an emergency and you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
For counselling and support:
- Lifeline: http://www.lifeline.co.nz, call 0800 543 354 or text 4357 (HELP)
- Suicide Crisis Helpline: www.lifeline.org.nz/services/suicide-crisis-helpline, or call 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
Youth services:
- Youthline: Call 0800 376 633 or text 234
- What's Up: Call 0800 942 8787 (11am to 11pm) or webchat (11am to 10.30pm)
- Depression helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202 (available 24/7)
- Helpline: Need to talk? Call or text 1737
- Aoake te Rā (Bereaved by Suicide Service): Call 0800 000 053
For more information and support, talk to your local doctor, hauora, community mental health team, or counselling service.
The Mental Health Foundation has more helplines and service contacts - click here for information
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A warning that this podcast contains discussion around suicide. You
can find support services in our show notes. Kyota. I'm
Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily
podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. On August ninth,
(00:26):
twenty twenty one, the day after the Tokyo Olympics ended,
cyclist Olivia Podmore died in a suspected suicide. She had
represented New Zealand the twenty sixteen Olympics but was not selected.
Five years later, her death sent shock waves through the
close knit cycling community and wider sporting network and the
(00:50):
culture at cycling and Z was eventually investigated. Now over
three years later, a coronial inquiry and Podmore's death is
due to begin today. And then Herald reported Tom Delaine
has been covering the story for the last three years
(01:10):
and joins us now on the front page to discuss
Olivia Podmore's life, career and her tragic death. So, Tom,
can you give us a brief overview of Olivia's career
prior and her rise to the top.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, So, as anyone in a New Zealand national sporting team,
she was a talented young athlete.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
She grew up in christ Church.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Her mother Ninky, said that she always had a fairly
care free attitude to her cycling in her junior years.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
She had obvious talents.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And that sort of care free attitude, she said, actually
she thought helped her in the early days. She didn't
get two worked up about the competition, she didn't overtrain,
and that relaxed attitude helped her in junior competitions. She
moved in to become a sprint cyclist, so you know,
nerves and seconds counted in that kind of competition. She
had a bit of a sporting pedigree as well. So
(02:07):
both her parents were keen cyclists and her great grandfather
was actually an Olympic weightlifter in the nineteen twenty eight Olympics.
So yeah, after finishing school at seventeen, so she went
straight in to train at the High Performance Sport New
Zealand Center in Cambridge, and she made the twenty sixteen
Reo Olympics when she was nineteen. She was selected for
three sprint events there. But it was somewhat it was
(02:31):
a turbulent experience those those twenty sixteen games. In her
own words, she describes the experiences well, she describes it
as it wasn't a great experience for me. She's somewhat
underperformed in the events, and she had quite a dramatic
crash in the twenty sixteen Olympics where she was knocked
out for about forty five seconds, she says, and she
(02:51):
rode straight after that in another event directly after being concussed,
and that she didn't perform well understandably in that next event.
So she had a quick introduction into the Olympic sports,
as I guess a lot of cyclists are quite young
when they performed. But yeah, quick introduction to the Olympic sport.
But yeah, as a youth, quite quite relaxed about the sport.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So fast forward to twenty twenty one. At what point
does she learn that she's not going to be selected
to go to Tokyo.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The twenty twenty Tokyo Games were delayed obviously a year
due to COVID, so they actually happened in twenty twenty one,
and that made the selection process more drawn out. She
wasn't selected technically, She found out she wasn't selected in
August twenty twenty, but the team selection was dragged out
for a year longer. There was a bunch of complicating
factors around her non selection in the team. It's all
(03:42):
sort of draws back to the twenty sixteen Games, where
you know her place within Cycling New Zealand sort of
surrounded by controversy. It's all come out since since her death.
Podmore was caught up in a significant event that happened
in the training camp prior to the twenty sixteen Rio
Games that were in Bordeaux, France, six weeks out from
those Rio Games. So basically a night out among the
(04:04):
athletes and the coaches left Podmore without a roommate in
the early hours of the morning. So she was nineteen
years old then, so she reported to management at Cycling
New Zealand the missing athlete. So by Podmore reporting that
a member of the Cycling New Zealand team hadn't come
home that night, that kicked off a process by basically
(04:26):
exposing that this athlete was in a relationship with a
Cycling New Zealand coach. That whole controversy, which which sort
of begun right before the twenty sixteen Games, then eventually
led into a whole inquiry within Cycling New Zealand. Following
the twenty sixteen Olympics, so basically during that period she
was caught up in this inquiry and it's since been
(04:46):
exposed with a herald exposed.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Following her death.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That Podmore has understood to be an athlete that was
pressured to lie during that inquiry was a twenty eighteen
inquiry by Mike Herron, so that was reported in the
inquiry that didn't name pod So she had already been
pressured to lie within this inquiry around a relationship between
a coach at Cycling New Zealand and an athlete. Following that,
there's perceptions that she was marginalized within the High Performance
(05:10):
Sport Cambridge camp following that inquiry. So the twenty eighteen
Heron report found that there was favoritism from Peden to
the athlete in which she was in a inappropriate relationship
with people close to her. Yeah, as I said, felt
that Podmore was marginalized within the camp following her involvement
in that inquiry.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So that was all in the background.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
She was also given a twenty thousand grand sporting grant
for welfare reasons and the lead up to twenty eighteen
twenty nineteen, and there was a whole lot of issues
with her own performance during that period. To complicate matters
even further, her partner in some of the sprint events
that she was attempting to be selected for the twenty
twenty Tokyo Games, Tesha Hansen, was also in a legal
(05:52):
dispute with Cycling New Zealand over perceived obstacles in the
selection path for her after they were initially rejected in
twenty nineteen from make the team. So anyway, in short,
there was a whole lot of build up and hurdles
that Podma had to face to get to the Tokyo Olympics.
A lot of her friends and family felt that she
was unfairly treated in not making the team, but she didn't.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
We've lost a sister, a friend, and a fighter. Olivia
may have been the girl that you saw at the supermarket,
at the gym, on the track on TV. She was
loved and will be sorely missed.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
So today marks the start of the coronial inquest into
Olivia's death. How long is this set to run for
and what's it expected to cover?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
So it's set to run for three weeks.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So in a technical sense, Corona's conduct inquiries to determine
the cause and circumstances of death and to identify ways
to prevent similar death in the future. In terms of
the pod More inquiry, there'll be more than twenty five
witnesses are expected to be called during the three weeks.
That'll include former coaches of Podmore, past and present leaders
of Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand,
(07:13):
and also health professionals who treated Podmore. There's a number
of non publication orders around names of health professionals and
various people in a professional sense that were involved in Podmore,
but there'll all be witnesses also speaking. Podmore's father Phil
and her brother Mitchell, who participated in the inquest. They've
never publicly spoken since Olivia's death, and I spoke to
(07:38):
Phil in twenty twenty one after his daughter's death and
he was He always maintained that he wouldn't speak publicly
until the coronial inquiry, so it's taken three years to
get to this point, but he'll be there. And also
Olivia's mum, Kay, who's spoken a lot publicly since since
her daughter's death and been highly critical of Cycling New Zealand. Yeah,
(07:59):
in terms of what it's going to traverse the inquiry,
you know. Basically, it'll be looking at the conditions within
Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sport and her medical
care and how that environment contributed to her suspected suicide.
There was a previous inquiry that began at the end
of twenty twenty one that was again conducted by Casey
(08:19):
Mike Caron who did the twenty eighteen inquiry into culture
at Cycling New Zealand. It's hard not to see that
inquiri as I mean, it's clearly a direct result of
Podmore's death. But technically that inquiry into Cycling New Zealand
could not really delve into the individual circumstances and factors
that led to Podmore's death. It had to be focused
more around the culture of the organization. So this coronial
(08:42):
inquiry can delve directly into the personal circumstances of Olivia's
experience there and treatment there. Also integral to the coronal
inquiry as Olivia's medical records until now i've not been
made public, been told by Ninki, her mum and her
Nick's partner Chris Middleton, is over a thousand documents that
(09:04):
they obtained from High Performance Sport in New Zealand and
proves to be pretty disturbing reading from what I've been told,
So her treatment and truman by coaches and medical records
will come out in this coronial inquiry.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
You mentioned Mike Heron's report into Cycling New Zealand that
was ordered after Olivia's death. It found a number of
cultural and structural deficiencies at the sporting organization which prioritizes
medals over well being. What were some of those revelations.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yeah, so that was sort of the defining catchphrase that
came out of that finding an organization that prioritizes medals
over well being. In summary of the findings was a
damning report. Most alarming among the findings was athletes had
a sense of a fear of reprisals for raising issues
with coaches and management. There was also a lot of
criticism of the centralized high performance base in Cambridge that
(10:06):
carries a risk for athlete well being, and Heron concluded
that that having that base, you know, in Cambridge, where
athletes from all around the country would travel to away
from their families and live and train, that system should
be entirely reconsidered. Also, a lack of transparency around selection
at Cycling New Zealand for you know, Olympics and big
events was highlighted as problematic and a funding model at
(10:28):
odds with well being. The Hearon Report released in twenty
twenty two. It also found a lack of appropriate women's
health support and a reliance on traditional mail networks, particularly
within the coaching environment where there was a lack of
women and diversity, and Podmore's coaches herself were the direct
ones for her were men.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
It's been over two years since that report came out,
to your understanding, has there been much change in the
organization since then?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, so there was.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
There has been a at least publiclyff fit amongst Sport
New Zealand high Performance Sport New Zealand to have athlete
well being more center front and center in terms of
how they structure their you know, their system, their runs
towards big events like like Olympics and that sort of thing.
At the end of twenty twenty one, you know, just
months after Olivia's death, High Performance Sport in New Zealand
(11:18):
confirmed it would be funding seven point four million dollars
to athlete well being initiatives over the next three years.
So that was I guess, you know, significant tangible progress
in terms of, you know, focusing on athlete well being
over just results, and the CEO of High Performance Sport
in New Zealand and Sport in New Zealand, Railing Castle,
said that they would be working with the national sporting
(11:40):
organizations to improve mental health literacy in athlete and having
an athlete voice throughout the system.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
So yeah, I mean they have been conscious of.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
It and there has been more initiatives to have athlete
input into how they're doing at these various sporting organizations.
Whether that's translated to better athlete wellbeing, it's hard to measure.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
It stings a lot that she's not here now, like
she should have been up there with us, but she's
just taught us so much and she's with all of
us every single day. Yeah, I think it's so hard
to put into words. It's definitely how much it is
(12:25):
a much nicer place to be here now. But we've
always had a great support crew.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah. Things interesting when coronial inquests like this come out
because they do happen years after the event, years after
the death, and once we get to the results of
the coronial inquest, which we won't know, we don't get
a date exactly of when we get the results of
(12:53):
the coronial inquest or the report. It seems to me
like organizations have that act stop of saying, oh, well,
in the years after we did this, we did this,
we did this. But do you think given the secrecy
and they haven't been transparent in any of this either,
that a lot of dirty laundry that we haven't seen
(13:15):
will come out in this inquest and they don't they
won't have that option of saying we've done this, this,
and this, because that may not be enough.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of obviously three weeks,
there's a lot of material that's going to come out
in that in that time, and it's clear from speaking
to friends and family that she was getting psychological help
within the organization, and that will be delved into in
some detail, and whether there was appropriate duty of care
(13:43):
from the organization around her. Certainly, speaking to friends of
hers in the year before she died or when she'd
found out that she wasn't making the Olympic team, they
were pretty they were totally clear that she was really
struggling mentally during that period and she was getting psychological
help through at least the organization. Cycling New Zealand and
(14:06):
High Performance Sports were aware that she was dealing with
these issues, and as I said, there's over a thousand documents,
help medical documents that are going to be explored in
the inquiry, so you know, hard to believe there won't
be some pretty concerning details brought out about the state
she was in. Also delving into the coaching environment within
the organization, so we've The Herald wrote about the toxic
(14:29):
culture that was in place at Cycling New Zealand in
the years prior to the twenty twenty Tokyo twenty twenty
one happened in twenty twenty one, but the the Olympic
cycle leading up to those games exposed a lot of
toxic cultural elements to selection around the coaches there at
the time. The lead sprint coach German Renee Wolfe and
also the head selector for Cycling New Zealand Martin barras
(14:52):
two coaches that some of their coaching style was heavily
criticized by other athletes within the organization. Following Podmore's death,
she obviously wasn't selected and both those coaches were removed
from the organization or resigned, is the official line within
about six months of Podmore's death. So I think that
(15:12):
the depth of an unhealthy environment within cycling New Zealand
will be, you would hope, will be laid bare in
the inquiry in a lot more detail than we've had before.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Tom, you've been following this story for three years now.
I remember you wrote this big feature at the end
of twenty twenty one about Olivia talking to her friends
and family about her and her life. What are some
of their memories that stick out to you?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, I mean that process of doing that feature took
months and spoke to a lot of people connected with her.
I was struck by what a popular person she was
and what a wide network of people she had. And
I guess you know that these after someone's death in
a suspected suicide, people always you know, it's not pretty
(16:00):
common narrative to hear that people didn't see the warning
signs and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Some people knew she was dealing with issues.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I know the start of that that days before she died,
she was out skiing with former Olympic roller Eric Murray
and another close friend of hers. I think she lived
with him in Cambridge and they describe having this great
fun weekend. This was literally days before she died, and
just how that, you know, just that not really saying
that the magnitude of what was about to happen. Well,
(16:30):
also being somewhat aware of her struggles. I mean, you know,
it's interesting delving into a person's personal history like I
did for that piece. Rereading it today, you just realize
all the things she had to deal with as well.
We you know, we traverses a little bit of her
recreational drug use in the last year. Also just the
situation she had to deal with her whole life. She
had an abortion as a teenager, all the chaos that
(16:53):
was that she was caught up with in cycling New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I mean, you know, it's twofold. The memories from them,
a lot of them were quite heartbreaking in terms of
the stuff she'd had to deal with. But also she
seemed like a person, a very affable, friendly person who
you know, was obviously struggling with a lot, but also
you know, very talented and had a lot of friendships
in her life. And yeah, I guess this inquiry, I
(17:18):
guess will be focusing in a way. It's an opportunity
to focus on her as a person more than obviously
the institutional negligence that perhaps contributed to her death would
be delved into. But you know, there's going to be
interviews with family members and it's really focused on her.
That is, by definition what this is. So it'll be
an opportunity to delve into her personal issues and I
(17:39):
guess to some extent you'll get insight into the kind.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Of person she is.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Thanks for joining us, Tom, Thank you. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at NZ Herald
dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by
Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer.
(18:03):
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
A warning that this podcast contains discussion around suicide. You
can find support services in our show notes. Kyota. I'm
Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily
podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. On August ninth,
(00:26):
twenty twenty one, the day after the Tokyo Olympics ended,
cyclist Olivia Podmore died in a suspected suicide. She had
represented New Zealand the twenty sixteen Olympics but was not selected.
Five years later, her death sent shock waves through the
close knit cycling community and wider sporting network and the
(00:50):
culture at cycling and Z was eventually investigated. Now over
three years later, a coronial inquiry and Podmore's death is
due to begin today. And then Herald reported Tom Delaine
has been covering the story for the last three years
(01:10):
and joins us now on the front page to discuss
Olivia Podmore's life, career and her tragic death. So, Tom,
can you give us a brief overview of Olivia's career
prior and her rise to the top.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, So, as anyone in a New Zealand national sporting team,
she was a talented young athlete.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
She grew up in christ Church.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Her mother Ninky, said that she always had a fairly
care free attitude to her cycling in her junior years.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
She had obvious talents.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And that sort of care free attitude, she said, actually
she thought helped her in the early days. She didn't
get two worked up about the competition, she didn't overtrain,
and that relaxed attitude helped her in junior competitions. She
moved in to become a sprint cyclist, so you know,
nerves and seconds counted in that kind of competition. She
had a bit of a sporting pedigree as well. So
(02:07):
both her parents were keen cyclists and her great grandfather
was actually an Olympic weightlifter in the nineteen twenty eight Olympics.
So yeah, after finishing school at seventeen, so she went
straight in to train at the High Performance Sport New
Zealand Center in Cambridge, and she made the twenty sixteen
Reo Olympics when she was nineteen. She was selected for
three sprint events there. But it was somewhat it was
(02:31):
a turbulent experience those those twenty sixteen games. In her
own words, she describes the experiences well, she describes it
as it wasn't a great experience for me. She's somewhat
underperformed in the events, and she had quite a dramatic
crash in the twenty sixteen Olympics where she was knocked
out for about forty five seconds, she says, and she
(02:51):
rode straight after that in another event directly after being concussed,
and that she didn't perform well understandably in that next event.
So she had a quick introduction into the Olympic sports,
as I guess a lot of cyclists are quite young
when they performed. But yeah, quick introduction to the Olympic sport.
But yeah, as a youth, quite quite relaxed about the sport.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So fast forward to twenty twenty one. At what point
does she learn that she's not going to be selected
to go to Tokyo.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The twenty twenty Tokyo Games were delayed obviously a year
due to COVID, so they actually happened in twenty twenty one,
and that made the selection process more drawn out. She
wasn't selected technically, She found out she wasn't selected in
August twenty twenty, but the team selection was dragged out
for a year longer. There was a bunch of complicating
factors around her non selection in the team. It's all
(03:42):
sort of draws back to the twenty sixteen Games, where
you know her place within Cycling New Zealand sort of
surrounded by controversy. It's all come out since since her death.
Podmore was caught up in a significant event that happened
in the training camp prior to the twenty sixteen Rio
Games that were in Bordeaux, France, six weeks out from
those Rio Games. So basically a night out among the
(04:04):
athletes and the coaches left Podmore without a roommate in
the early hours of the morning. So she was nineteen
years old then, so she reported to management at Cycling
New Zealand the missing athlete. So by Podmore reporting that
a member of the Cycling New Zealand team hadn't come
home that night, that kicked off a process by basically
(04:26):
exposing that this athlete was in a relationship with a
Cycling New Zealand coach. That whole controversy, which which sort
of begun right before the twenty sixteen Games, then eventually
led into a whole inquiry within Cycling New Zealand. Following
the twenty sixteen Olympics, so basically during that period she
was caught up in this inquiry and it's since been
(04:46):
exposed with a herald exposed.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Following her death.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That Podmore has understood to be an athlete that was
pressured to lie during that inquiry was a twenty eighteen
inquiry by Mike Herron, so that was reported in the
inquiry that didn't name pod So she had already been
pressured to lie within this inquiry around a relationship between
a coach at Cycling New Zealand and an athlete. Following that,
there's perceptions that she was marginalized within the High Performance
(05:10):
Sport Cambridge camp following that inquiry. So the twenty eighteen
Heron report found that there was favoritism from Peden to
the athlete in which she was in a inappropriate relationship
with people close to her. Yeah, as I said, felt
that Podmore was marginalized within the camp following her involvement
in that inquiry.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So that was all in the background.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
She was also given a twenty thousand grand sporting grant
for welfare reasons and the lead up to twenty eighteen
twenty nineteen, and there was a whole lot of issues
with her own performance during that period. To complicate matters
even further, her partner in some of the sprint events
that she was attempting to be selected for the twenty
twenty Tokyo Games, Tesha Hansen, was also in a legal
(05:52):
dispute with Cycling New Zealand over perceived obstacles in the
selection path for her after they were initially rejected in
twenty nineteen from make the team. So anyway, in short,
there was a whole lot of build up and hurdles
that Podma had to face to get to the Tokyo Olympics.
A lot of her friends and family felt that she
was unfairly treated in not making the team, but she didn't.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
We've lost a sister, a friend, and a fighter. Olivia
may have been the girl that you saw at the supermarket,
at the gym, on the track on TV. She was
loved and will be sorely missed.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
So today marks the start of the coronial inquest into
Olivia's death. How long is this set to run for
and what's it expected to cover?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
So it's set to run for three weeks.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
So in a technical sense, Corona's conduct inquiries to determine
the cause and circumstances of death and to identify ways
to prevent similar death in the future. In terms of
the pod More inquiry, there'll be more than twenty five
witnesses are expected to be called during the three weeks.
That'll include former coaches of Podmore, past and present leaders
of Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand,
(07:13):
and also health professionals who treated Podmore. There's a number
of non publication orders around names of health professionals and
various people in a professional sense that were involved in Podmore,
but there'll all be witnesses also speaking. Podmore's father Phil
and her brother Mitchell, who participated in the inquest. They've
never publicly spoken since Olivia's death, and I spoke to
(07:38):
Phil in twenty twenty one after his daughter's death and
he was He always maintained that he wouldn't speak publicly
until the coronial inquiry, so it's taken three years to
get to this point, but he'll be there. And also
Olivia's mum, Kay, who's spoken a lot publicly since since
her daughter's death and been highly critical of Cycling New Zealand. Yeah,
(07:59):
in terms of what it's going to traverse the inquiry,
you know. Basically, it'll be looking at the conditions within
Cycling New Zealand and High Performance Sport and her medical
care and how that environment contributed to her suspected suicide.
There was a previous inquiry that began at the end
of twenty twenty one that was again conducted by Casey
(08:19):
Mike Caron who did the twenty eighteen inquiry into culture
at Cycling New Zealand. It's hard not to see that
inquiri as I mean, it's clearly a direct result of
Podmore's death. But technically that inquiry into Cycling New Zealand
could not really delve into the individual circumstances and factors
that led to Podmore's death. It had to be focused
more around the culture of the organization. So this coronial
(08:42):
inquiry can delve directly into the personal circumstances of Olivia's
experience there and treatment there. Also integral to the coronal
inquiry as Olivia's medical records until now i've not been
made public, been told by Ninki, her mum and her
Nick's partner Chris Middleton, is over a thousand documents that
(09:04):
they obtained from High Performance Sport in New Zealand and
proves to be pretty disturbing reading from what I've been told,
So her treatment and truman by coaches and medical records
will come out in this coronial inquiry.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
You mentioned Mike Heron's report into Cycling New Zealand that
was ordered after Olivia's death. It found a number of
cultural and structural deficiencies at the sporting organization which prioritizes
medals over well being. What were some of those revelations.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yeah, so that was sort of the defining catchphrase that
came out of that finding an organization that prioritizes medals
over well being. In summary of the findings was a
damning report. Most alarming among the findings was athletes had
a sense of a fear of reprisals for raising issues
with coaches and management. There was also a lot of
criticism of the centralized high performance base in Cambridge that
(10:06):
carries a risk for athlete well being, and Heron concluded
that that having that base, you know, in Cambridge, where
athletes from all around the country would travel to away
from their families and live and train, that system should
be entirely reconsidered. Also, a lack of transparency around selection
at Cycling New Zealand for you know, Olympics and big
events was highlighted as problematic and a funding model at
(10:28):
odds with well being. The Hearon Report released in twenty
twenty two. It also found a lack of appropriate women's
health support and a reliance on traditional mail networks, particularly
within the coaching environment where there was a lack of
women and diversity, and Podmore's coaches herself were the direct
ones for her were men.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
It's been over two years since that report came out,
to your understanding, has there been much change in the
organization since then?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, so there was.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
There has been a at least publiclyff fit amongst Sport
New Zealand high Performance Sport New Zealand to have athlete
well being more center front and center in terms of
how they structure their you know, their system, their runs
towards big events like like Olympics and that sort of thing.
At the end of twenty twenty one, you know, just
months after Olivia's death, High Performance Sport in New Zealand
(11:18):
confirmed it would be funding seven point four million dollars
to athlete well being initiatives over the next three years.
So that was I guess, you know, significant tangible progress
in terms of, you know, focusing on athlete well being
over just results, and the CEO of High Performance Sport
in New Zealand and Sport in New Zealand, Railing Castle,
said that they would be working with the national sporting
(11:40):
organizations to improve mental health literacy in athlete and having
an athlete voice throughout the system.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
So yeah, I mean they have been conscious of.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
It and there has been more initiatives to have athlete
input into how they're doing at these various sporting organizations.
Whether that's translated to better athlete wellbeing, it's hard to measure.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
It stings a lot that she's not here now, like
she should have been up there with us, but she's
just taught us so much and she's with all of
us every single day. Yeah, I think it's so hard
to put into words. It's definitely how much it is
(12:25):
a much nicer place to be here now. But we've
always had a great support crew.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah. Things interesting when coronial inquests like this come out
because they do happen years after the event, years after
the death, and once we get to the results of
the coronial inquest, which we won't know, we don't get
a date exactly of when we get the results of
(12:53):
the coronial inquest or the report. It seems to me
like organizations have that act stop of saying, oh, well,
in the years after we did this, we did this,
we did this. But do you think given the secrecy
and they haven't been transparent in any of this either,
that a lot of dirty laundry that we haven't seen
(13:15):
will come out in this inquest and they don't they
won't have that option of saying we've done this, this,
and this, because that may not be enough.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of obviously three weeks,
there's a lot of material that's going to come out
in that in that time, and it's clear from speaking
to friends and family that she was getting psychological help
within the organization, and that will be delved into in
some detail, and whether there was appropriate duty of care
(13:43):
from the organization around her. Certainly, speaking to friends of
hers in the year before she died or when she'd
found out that she wasn't making the Olympic team, they
were pretty they were totally clear that she was really
struggling mentally during that period and she was getting psychological
help through at least the organization. Cycling New Zealand and
(14:06):
High Performance Sports were aware that she was dealing with
these issues, and as I said, there's over a thousand documents,
help medical documents that are going to be explored in
the inquiry, so you know, hard to believe there won't
be some pretty concerning details brought out about the state
she was in. Also delving into the coaching environment within
the organization, so we've The Herald wrote about the toxic
(14:29):
culture that was in place at Cycling New Zealand in
the years prior to the twenty twenty Tokyo twenty twenty
one happened in twenty twenty one, but the the Olympic
cycle leading up to those games exposed a lot of
toxic cultural elements to selection around the coaches there at
the time. The lead sprint coach German Renee Wolfe and
also the head selector for Cycling New Zealand Martin barras
(14:52):
two coaches that some of their coaching style was heavily
criticized by other athletes within the organization. Following Podmore's death,
she obviously wasn't selected and both those coaches were removed
from the organization or resigned, is the official line within
about six months of Podmore's death. So I think that
(15:12):
the depth of an unhealthy environment within cycling New Zealand
will be, you would hope, will be laid bare in
the inquiry in a lot more detail than we've had before.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Tom, you've been following this story for three years now.
I remember you wrote this big feature at the end
of twenty twenty one about Olivia talking to her friends
and family about her and her life. What are some
of their memories that stick out to you?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, I mean that process of doing that feature took
months and spoke to a lot of people connected with her.
I was struck by what a popular person she was
and what a wide network of people she had. And
I guess you know that these after someone's death in
a suspected suicide, people always you know, it's not pretty
(16:00):
common narrative to hear that people didn't see the warning
signs and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Some people knew she was dealing with issues.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I know the start of that that days before she died,
she was out skiing with former Olympic roller Eric Murray
and another close friend of hers. I think she lived
with him in Cambridge and they describe having this great
fun weekend. This was literally days before she died, and
just how that, you know, just that not really saying
that the magnitude of what was about to happen. Well,
(16:30):
also being somewhat aware of her struggles. I mean, you know,
it's interesting delving into a person's personal history like I
did for that piece. Rereading it today, you just realize
all the things she had to deal with as well.
We you know, we traverses a little bit of her
recreational drug use in the last year. Also just the
situation she had to deal with her whole life. She
had an abortion as a teenager, all the chaos that
(16:53):
was that she was caught up with in cycling New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I mean, you know, it's twofold. The memories from them,
a lot of them were quite heartbreaking in terms of
the stuff she'd had to deal with. But also she
seemed like a person, a very affable, friendly person who
you know, was obviously struggling with a lot, but also
you know, very talented and had a lot of friendships
in her life. And yeah, I guess this inquiry, I
(17:18):
guess will be focusing in a way. It's an opportunity
to focus on her as a person more than obviously
the institutional negligence that perhaps contributed to her death would
be delved into. But you know, there's going to be
interviews with family members and it's really focused on her.
That is, by definition what this is. So it'll be
an opportunity to delve into her personal issues and I
(17:39):
guess to some extent you'll get insight into the kind.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Of person she is.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Thanks for joining us, Tom, Thank you. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at NZ Herald
dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by
Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also a sound engineer.
(18:03):
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
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