Athletics New Zealand and the Government are working on a bid to bring the World Indoor Athletics Championships to Aotearoa in 2028.
Usually held biennially, the event attracts around 550 competitors from 160 nations and is typically staged in the third week of March.
Olympic gold medallist Hamish Kerr says this would be a huge opportunity for New Zealand.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We'll do now on News Talk ZB by Hamish Kerr.
Want a gold medal and high jump at the Olympic Games,
don't you know? You gotta like the sound of that,
don't you, Hamish? That'll never get boring, will it? And
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Thanks for having mate, mate. No, it definitely won't get boring,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We're going to talk about actually ask you what you're
doing later in the piece. But let's get to the
let's get to the jump right now. World Indoor Athletics Championships.
The possibility of it being held here in New Zealand's
news came out today. Michael Burgs the New Zealand Herald
break the story.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
This is epic.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
How big would this be for athletics in New Zealand
do you think, Hamish?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Oh, I mean it would be huge, Like I don't
think that we you know, probably since having the Con
Games in Auckland nineteen ninety's. It's you know, it's not
something that we've had locally, you know, a really really
high high performance competition like this, and I think something
like indoors actually really suits us.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Well.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's a slightly smaller field and often is in a
smaller venue being an indoor comp and it's in a
perfect time a year for us. You know, we could
get all those athletes down and they could have training
camps here and you know, muck around and hang out
in the local kind of summer for a couple of
weeks beforehand.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
So yeah, it would be it would be awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
As far as the timing twenty twenty eight now it's
a few months before the Olympic Games in LA From
what you know, when the Indoors are on, how effect
do they buy the Olympic Games if they're running on
the same year, Hamish, Yeah, ah.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Look, I mean it's a great taste of what's come right,
Like you saw it this year with me and Jordie
and a few others, you know getting medals at that
World and was really set the scene. And I think
that that's something that you know, we felt like the
nation really picked up on and definitely if it was here,
I think that that would just be such an amazing
kind of stepping stone into into what will be hopefully
an amazing Olympics as well.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
In twenty two.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
The quality of the field, though, do people tend to
skip the indoors in the same years as the Olympic Games?
You see what I'm saying here, are we likely to
attract if it comes here the top field? Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Absolutely? I mean, I mean, look like you're never going
to get everybody. That's just the nature of different people's schedules,
and you know the way that they prep best for
something like the Olympics. But I think that you'd find
that you'd get a very very high quality field. There
would definitely be you know, if you take the top
sort of fifteen in the world, you'd be looking at
well over half of the top guys being there. And
(02:42):
so I think that it is something that would be amazing.
But I think the thing is, irrespective of how many
of those absolute stars you get, the indoor comps are
actually just so much fun. You know, you get to
go in there and you know, just the noise and
the varied kind of things to watch as a spectator,
and being in such a sort of a slightly smaller
space than a normal field means that you do get
(03:04):
to experience all the events happening in front of you.
So it is something that you know in Scotland. Even
sitting there in the crowd once I'd finished my event
and watching guys like Jordie you know when fifteen it was.
It was such a special moment and just the noise
of the crowd, you know. I think that even if
you're a non an athletics fan going along with that,
you'd get a hell of a buzz, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Olympic gold medalist Tamish Kurd joins us Homosh. When you
look at New Zealand's infrastructure, now apparently you can have
an indoor outdoors in some cases, so it might well
be eaten part. But I'm thinking probably Toka and christ
Jig would be magnificent. Thirty thousand people, it's got a roof,
so on and so forth. But from what you know
about New Zealand, can they cope with something as important,
(03:47):
maybe not as large, but as important as the World
Indoor Champs.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I mean, yes, yeah, I definitely, I definitely think we could.
It'd be around selling the experience to the Europeans for sure.
You know, they don't love traveling to the US at
the best of times, so to get them all the
way over here will definitely be a challenge, but I think,
I think that we do have some really good, some
good compari of advantages. You know, obviously being summer it
means that they can come down here and do a
training block out of the cold European winter. So you know,
(04:14):
there are definitely some things and in terms of facilities,
like you know, we we have potential to be able
to put some some really good events on. There's definitely
you know a number of tracks that are that are
really well developed already, and there's definitely some some sites,
especially for the indoors sort of where the where the
actual event would be held. There's there's definitely some really
good options that don't currently have tracks. But you know,
(04:34):
to get an indoor facility into something like one of
those big event centers would definitely be you know, pretty
easy to do and definitely feasible.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Very focused only twenty six events, thirteen female, thirteen male.
I suppose that just adds to the intensity from a
viewing perspective. People really get to see the best in
the go to athletics events, don't they These are the ones,
these are the blue ribbon events.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, a typical major championship.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
So like a World Outdoors would take about ten days,
generally World Indoors only three days long. And so you
find that it's just you know, every session you go to,
it's just high quality. There's finals, there's medals, there's there's
big storylines. It's it's something that you can pretty much
go along for three days straight and just just be
absolutely pummeled with you know, high energy competition. So it's
(05:23):
it is a pretty cool thing to have. And honestly,
you know, from from my perspective, if there was any
event that you would want to have in athletics to host,
it would be a World Indoors.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The difference between the indoors and the outdoors, besides the
obvious when it comes to competing, the advantages the disadvantages
of the two distinct competitions.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I mean from a high jumperspective, the big difference would
be how much more involved the crowd can get indoors
being a big stadium outdoors, often it is hard to
get the whole the whole stadium around you and really
getting amongst the performance. And that's something that as high
jump as we love to do, we love to you know,
get the crowd get up and get them, you know,
as noisy as possible before we jump. So yeah, to
(06:04):
do that in an indoor facility is just so much easier.
So often guys will will kind of lean on that
a lot more. And so yeah, it's definitely one of
those things that if you come along and you know,
if you see an end or you know, competition versus
outdoor one, there there is definitely a lot more crowd interaction.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Some of the events can't be held. I believe the
two hundred meters has been canned because it's simply too tight.
They can't run. So you've got an addition I suppose
with you as well. I mean, one hundred meters of
sixty meters you've got no wind isshoes. You've got to
like that. So there are positives and eiggers.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I mean, you know, most events, you'd find the standard
of performance is as good, if not better than an
outdoor performance generally. Obviously, like you said, there's a couple
of events that do run slightly differently. Only been a
two hundred meter track means that the four hundred meters
is actually two laps of the track rather than one,
and an eight hundred is four laps. So yeah, there
(06:57):
are different different things, but ultimately what that means is
all that racing is just so much closer and it's
just so much more action.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Packed and the quality of the engagement because the athlete
number is smaller. So I'm presuming by the time we
get to the finals those three days you are actually
very much the cream of what you've got. There's not
a lot of qualifying going on. The best team out
to compete. Is that fair?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, not a lot of qualifying at all. So I
mean for someone like me who loves a qualifyer.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
You'll never get over that, will you.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, So no qualifying and field events, it's just straight
finals and then for the track events that will only
be sort of one round, if not too in some
specific cases.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So yeah, so very small, very very to the point.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
But also because of that, it's a bloody exciting thing
to be a part of.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Would certainly like to be there. New Zealand are very
events focused these days. I think you'd sell the place out,
especially when you consider yourself and a number of other
New Zealand athletes who are near the top, if not
at the top of their game. There's a lot of
quality athletes out there that I'm sure we'd love to
see competition like this. I'm sure the athletes amosh would
(08:10):
love to perform in front of their countrymen.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
You know, I think that you know, this is this
is something that we've had chats about as a as
a team and and definitely, you know, didn't think that
it was going to come to this, this sort of
even the stage of you know, the government and Athletics uson,
you know, commenting on the potential happening, but you know,
to know that that is, you know, a potential now
is something that I think the whole team are just
(08:34):
going to be absolutely stoked about. And you know, I'm
definitely not saying that there's anyone who wouldn't be competing
in four years time from the current crop of athletes,
but I think that, you know, if anyone was sort
of thinking about potentially moving on, this is definitely going
to keep them into it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And how you enjoying life away from the focus of
being an Olympic champion. Golf be a bad food? Is
that the gods?
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Yeah, Yeah, that's that's pretty much me at the moment.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
No, it's it's been amazing, you know, I've I've obviously
been back in the country for a month now, and yeah,
you're definitely it's definitely a different life getting you know,
asked for photos in the supermarket when you are picking
up your your your.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Pack of a pack of lemonades for the night, that's
for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
But yeah, it is, it is definitely, it's a very
cool experience. And I think that, you know, if I
can fucking use this to hopefully, you know, hopefully inspire
the next generation of athletes to realize it as possible
and and if things like you know, potentially world endor
is coming to New Zealand because of the increased exposure
we have, it's it's only great for me.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
For more from sports talk, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We'll do now on News Talk ZB by Hamish Kerr.
Want a gold medal and high jump at the Olympic Games,
don't you know? You gotta like the sound of that,
don't you, Hamish? That'll never get boring, will it? And
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Thanks for having mate, mate. No, it definitely won't get boring,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We're going to talk about actually ask you what you're
doing later in the piece. But let's get to the
let's get to the jump right now. World Indoor Athletics Championships.
The possibility of it being held here in New Zealand's
news came out today. Michael Burgs the New Zealand Herald
break the story.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
This is epic.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
How big would this be for athletics in New Zealand
do you think, Hamish?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Oh, I mean it would be huge, Like I don't
think that we you know, probably since having the Con
Games in Auckland nineteen ninety's. It's you know, it's not
something that we've had locally, you know, a really really
high high performance competition like this, and I think something
like indoors actually really suits us.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Well.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's a slightly smaller field and often is in a
smaller venue being an indoor comp and it's in a
perfect time a year for us. You know, we could
get all those athletes down and they could have training
camps here and you know, muck around and hang out
in the local kind of summer for a couple of
weeks beforehand.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
So yeah, it would be it would be awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
As far as the timing twenty twenty eight now it's
a few months before the Olympic Games in LA From
what you know, when the Indoors are on, how effect
do they buy the Olympic Games if they're running on
the same year, Hamish, Yeah, ah.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Look, I mean it's a great taste of what's come right,
Like you saw it this year with me and Jordie
and a few others, you know getting medals at that
World and was really set the scene. And I think
that that's something that you know, we felt like the
nation really picked up on and definitely if it was here,
I think that that would just be such an amazing
kind of stepping stone into into what will be hopefully
an amazing Olympics as well.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
In twenty two.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
The quality of the field, though, do people tend to
skip the indoors in the same years as the Olympic Games?
You see what I'm saying here, are we likely to
attract if it comes here the top field? Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Absolutely? I mean, I mean, look like you're never going
to get everybody. That's just the nature of different people's schedules,
and you know the way that they prep best for
something like the Olympics. But I think that you'd find
that you'd get a very very high quality field. There
would definitely be you know, if you take the top
sort of fifteen in the world, you'd be looking at
well over half of the top guys being there. And
(02:42):
so I think that it is something that would be amazing.
But I think the thing is, irrespective of how many
of those absolute stars you get, the indoor comps are
actually just so much fun. You know, you get to
go in there and you know, just the noise and
the varied kind of things to watch as a spectator,
and being in such a sort of a slightly smaller
space than a normal field means that you do get
(03:04):
to experience all the events happening in front of you.
So it is something that you know in Scotland. Even
sitting there in the crowd once I'd finished my event
and watching guys like Jordie you know when fifteen it was.
It was such a special moment and just the noise
of the crowd, you know. I think that even if
you're a non an athletics fan going along with that,
you'd get a hell of a buzz, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Olympic gold medalist Tamish Kurd joins us Homosh. When you
look at New Zealand's infrastructure, now apparently you can have
an indoor outdoors in some cases, so it might well
be eaten part. But I'm thinking probably Toka and christ
Jig would be magnificent. Thirty thousand people, it's got a roof,
so on and so forth. But from what you know
about New Zealand, can they cope with something as important,
(03:47):
maybe not as large, but as important as the World
Indoor Champs.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I mean, yes, yeah, I definitely, I definitely think we could.
It'd be around selling the experience to the Europeans for sure.
You know, they don't love traveling to the US at
the best of times, so to get them all the
way over here will definitely be a challenge, but I think,
I think that we do have some really good, some
good compari of advantages. You know, obviously being summer it
means that they can come down here and do a
training block out of the cold European winter. So you know,
(04:14):
there are definitely some things and in terms of facilities,
like you know, we we have potential to be able
to put some some really good events on. There's definitely
you know a number of tracks that are that are
really well developed already, and there's definitely some some sites,
especially for the indoors sort of where the where the
actual event would be held. There's there's definitely some really
good options that don't currently have tracks. But you know,
(04:34):
to get an indoor facility into something like one of
those big event centers would definitely be you know, pretty
easy to do and definitely feasible.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Very focused only twenty six events, thirteen female, thirteen male.
I suppose that just adds to the intensity from a
viewing perspective. People really get to see the best in
the go to athletics events, don't they These are the ones,
these are the blue ribbon events.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, a typical major championship.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
So like a World Outdoors would take about ten days,
generally World Indoors only three days long. And so you
find that it's just you know, every session you go to,
it's just high quality. There's finals, there's medals, there's there's
big storylines. It's it's something that you can pretty much
go along for three days straight and just just be
absolutely pummeled with you know, high energy competition. So it's
(05:23):
it is a pretty cool thing to have. And honestly,
you know, from from my perspective, if there was any
event that you would want to have in athletics to host,
it would be a World Indoors.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The difference between the indoors and the outdoors, besides the
obvious when it comes to competing, the advantages the disadvantages
of the two distinct competitions.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I mean from a high jumperspective, the big difference would
be how much more involved the crowd can get indoors
being a big stadium outdoors, often it is hard to
get the whole the whole stadium around you and really
getting amongst the performance. And that's something that as high
jump as we love to do, we love to you know,
get the crowd get up and get them, you know,
as noisy as possible before we jump. So yeah, to
(06:04):
do that in an indoor facility is just so much easier.
So often guys will will kind of lean on that
a lot more. And so yeah, it's definitely one of
those things that if you come along and you know,
if you see an end or you know, competition versus
outdoor one, there there is definitely a lot more crowd interaction.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Some of the events can't be held. I believe the
two hundred meters has been canned because it's simply too tight.
They can't run. So you've got an addition I suppose
with you as well. I mean, one hundred meters of
sixty meters you've got no wind isshoes. You've got to
like that. So there are positives and eiggers.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
I mean, you know, most events, you'd find the standard
of performance is as good, if not better than an
outdoor performance generally. Obviously, like you said, there's a couple
of events that do run slightly differently. Only been a
two hundred meter track means that the four hundred meters
is actually two laps of the track rather than one,
and an eight hundred is four laps. So yeah, there
(06:57):
are different different things, but ultimately what that means is
all that racing is just so much closer and it's
just so much more action.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Packed and the quality of the engagement because the athlete
number is smaller. So I'm presuming by the time we
get to the finals those three days you are actually
very much the cream of what you've got. There's not
a lot of qualifying going on. The best team out
to compete. Is that fair?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, not a lot of qualifying at all. So I
mean for someone like me who loves a qualifyer.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
You'll never get over that, will you.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, So no qualifying and field events, it's just straight
finals and then for the track events that will only
be sort of one round, if not too in some
specific cases.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So yeah, so very small, very very to the point.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
But also because of that, it's a bloody exciting thing
to be a part of.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Would certainly like to be there. New Zealand are very
events focused these days. I think you'd sell the place out,
especially when you consider yourself and a number of other
New Zealand athletes who are near the top, if not
at the top of their game. There's a lot of
quality athletes out there that I'm sure we'd love to
see competition like this. I'm sure the athletes amosh would
(08:10):
love to perform in front of their countrymen.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
You know, I think that you know, this is this
is something that we've had chats about as a as
a team and and definitely, you know, didn't think that
it was going to come to this, this sort of
even the stage of you know, the government and Athletics uson,
you know, commenting on the potential happening, but you know,
to know that that is, you know, a potential now
is something that I think the whole team are just
(08:34):
going to be absolutely stoked about. And you know, I'm
definitely not saying that there's anyone who wouldn't be competing
in four years time from the current crop of athletes,
but I think that, you know, if anyone was sort
of thinking about potentially moving on, this is definitely going
to keep them into it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And how you enjoying life away from the focus of
being an Olympic champion. Golf be a bad food? Is
that the gods?
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Yeah, Yeah, that's that's pretty much me at the moment.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
No, it's it's been amazing, you know, I've I've obviously
been back in the country for a month now, and yeah,
you're definitely it's definitely a different life getting you know,
asked for photos in the supermarket when you are picking
up your your your.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Pack of a pack of lemonades for the night, that's
for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
But yeah, it is, it is definitely, it's a very
cool experience. And I think that, you know, if I
can fucking use this to hopefully, you know, hopefully inspire
the next generation of athletes to realize it as possible
and and if things like you know, potentially world endor
is coming to New Zealand because of the increased exposure
we have, it's it's only great for me.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
For more from sports talk, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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