Luke Hetzel: What we can expect from winter sports in 2025

Snow Sports New Zealand General Manager of High Performance Luke Hetzel reflects on the year and discusses what people can expect from New Zealand in 2026.

Hetzel spoke to Jason Pine about Alice Robinson's recent successes, Zoi Synott's longevity at the top, the Winter Olympics, and if more athletes will appear in next year's circuit.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
News Talks HEB one twenty seven. Luke Hetzel is General
manager of High Performance at snow Sports New Zealand. Look,
thanks for joining us on Weekend Sport. We've just heard
from Alice Robinson. Clearly she's doing amazing things as the
Winter Olympics draw closer. How excited are you about her
recent form?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, we're well, I've still digesting, really, so Alice has
had quite a run with giant slalom and on an
absolute tear and tracking really well for the Olympics, and
then all of a sudden first place in Super G
and kind of proving she's a double metal threat and
first podium and that discipline and yeah, yeah, digesting really

(00:53):
it's awesome, Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
You've kind of alluded to my next question. She's obviously
a huge chance in the giant slalom, which I guess
you'd call her specialist event, but might she also contend
for the podium and Super G.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah, so Alice has been really focused on giant slalom
this Olympic quad, but she said she's had quite a
history of super G as well, and with the coaching
team she was with in the last Olympic squad. She
put a fair bit of effort into super G, so
a lot of experience there, and you know, it's not
they are different sports. Superg's fatter, disciplined, supergs faster, and

(01:34):
things are spaced out a little bit more. But yeah,
she's still Alice Robinson. She's still on skis, so they're
not so far different that we wouldn't see crossover skill
and we've seen that now it's podium so you know,
it's not the same as GS. She hasn't done ten
podiums in a row or wherever sheees at now, but
certainly put herself on the radar and.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Chatting to her, she seemed to think, and I guess
it's natural that the location of these games, Milan Cortina
is going to be a lot more familiar in the
last two in China and in South Korea. Will that
also be the case for the other athletes who go
from a New Zealand point.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
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