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A 'golden period' for Athletics New Zealand
Jaxin Daniels • September 23rd, 2025 5:22 pm
Hamish Kerr of New Zealand celebrates winning the Men's High Jump final at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo | Photo: Tsutomu Kishimoto / Photosport
After a successful World Athletics Championships showing in Tokyo, Chief Executive of Athletics New Zealand Cam Mitchell spoke to Sport Nation’s Scotty and Izzy.
Mitchell credits the success to the hard work of all involved.
“There’s a lot that goes into it from a coach perspective, athlete perspective, all those normal things that go into performance.”
“There’s a really good team environment that we’ve been able to create, everyone pushing each other.
“It’s a golden period for us.”
Geordie Beamish | Photo: Photosport
Something Mitchell hopes this “golden period” can bring is the continued growth of athletics participation in New Zealand.
“We had 10% growth post-Paris (Olympics),” Mitchell revealed.
“We hope to be able to capatalise and build on that again.
“We’ve now got full-time staff throughout the whole country that are able to go and support clubs and coaches and just make sure things remain accessible.
“There is strong interest.
“We’ve just got to make sure that the experience that people have when they go into a club or school environment is as good as it can be.”
Seeing sport on our screens is a major factor for growth, and that’s something that Mitchell wants to see happen after no local TV channels had the World Athletics Championships showing.
“The challenge for sports like athletics is everyone tunes in and watches athletics during the Olympics, but the three years either side of it, it drops away a bit.
“So we have to work very hard on that, make sure we are front of mind, we’re engaged with the media and we’re on TV and accessible to people.
“It’s a real shame that we weren’t on TV this time around, but the success will hopefully make those conversations easier in the future.
“So people can watch athletics and celebrate and enjoy the success that we’re having on the global stage, because it’s very rare and unique.”
Being on the other side of the world to most, New Zealand athletes are familiar with intense workloads that come with competing on the world stage.
“It is the reality, it’s a truly global sport,” Mitchell says.
“There’s a lot of events based up in Europe, so that dual seasonality is quite challenging for the athletes.
“The fact they’ve sort of got to try and peak for our domestic season and then get back to Europe and also be in fine form up there.
“Our team does a great job ensuring that the athletes are supported through this.
“They feel supported by us and that enables them to go and be their best when they’re performing at these pinnacle events.”
If the success of Athletics New Zealand continues, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more and more kids grow up wanting to be an Olympian.
