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Year in Review: Most outstanding Kiwi sportswoman of 2024
Sport Nation • December 31st, 2024 7:01 am
AAP
With a blockbuster 12 months of sports in the rear-view mirror, what better way to wind up than by reflecting on some of the stellar achievements of one of the most memorable years of Kiwi excellence in recent memory.
Today, the Sport Nation team cast their vote for the best NZ sportswoman of 2024.
Sam Hewat, Scotty & Izzy executive producer & NRL commentator: Lydia Ko
The greatest female golfer this country has ever produced, plagued by being a victim of her own early success.
What Lydia Ko achieved as a youngster will perhaps never be achieved again in the game of golf, but it set her career up with enormous pressure and expectation. Pressure and expectation many felt she failed to deal with as she struggled to reach the heights of her 2016 season.
However, in 2024, she began her return to glory.
There'd be a case for Lydia winning some sort of "comeback of the year" award, even if her win had come in a regular LPGA Tour event.
But she captured gold at the Paris Olympics - completing the full set with her silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo - and won the British Open, one of golf's most glamorous events and her third Major title.
She finally clipped her ticket into the LPGA Hall of Fame, and was awarded the LPGA's Heather Farr Perseverance Award.
In one of the most competitive and cut-throat women's sports on earth, she's achieved an incredible amount at the age of just 27.
Sam Ackerman, sports broadcaster & regular host: Ellesse Andrews
Lydia Ko is the popular choice. Dame Lisa Carrington is the unquestionable GOAT, and neither would be out of place for this title. But I’m giving my vote to Elesse Andrews.
I’ll preface this by saying, I’m no cycling enthusiast. But in my mind, Ko and Carrington were already locked-in for legend status, it seemed inevitable. As a nation, we expected far less from Andrews, despite her already being a World and Commonwealth champion.
Andrews won two individual gold medals at Paris (keirin & sprint), the only New Zealander to do so at this year’s pinnacle event and just the third in history to ever achieve it, joining icons Carrington (2020), Danyon Loader (1996) and Sir Peter Snell (1964). She added a team sprint silver for good measure and became the most successful Olympic cyclist in NZ history, surpassing even the great Sarah Ulmer.
Carrington, of course, won three golds but two of those were in teams. That absolutely doesn’t water down the achievement - it’s phenomenal - but it’s an argument often used against members of teams versus those who do it solo.
While Ko’s year was mindblowing as well, 2024 was the year Andrews joined them in that upper echelon of extraordinary Aotearoa sportswomen.
Alex Chapman, sports broadcaster & Mornings with Ian Smith regular: Ellesse Andrews
I'm sure many of my esteemed colleagues and sport’s fans will, and understandably so, think this should be Dame Lisa Carrington. And if you’re to go based purely on this year’s preferred unit of measurement (Olympic golds), I can understand why. But the surprise factor of what Ellesse Andrews did in Paris, gives her the nod ahead for me.
New Zealand’s smiling assassin, (although her teammates call it more of a pout), wheeled and weaved her way in performances that many, including herself to some extent, didn’t expect, as she painted the boards of the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines black.
Yes, wasn’t Andrews alone with that silver, though it was arguably the most eyebrow-raising medal of her three. The trio of Andrews, Shaane Fulton and Rebecca Petch, broke the world record on their way qualifying for the women’s team sprint final. Like walking out of your family home on Christmas Day, they may not have been leaving with their present of choice, though it was hardly a voucher to a shop they don’t attend or socks three sizes too small. A shock silver medal, though one which left them all smiling and only started Andrews’ momentum towards more medals.
As reigning world champion heading into the Games, it was hardly a complete shock for her to win gold in the keirin, (though the pre-competition markets suggested otherwise). Andrews’ performance in the deciding race was utter dominance, leading early, before temporarily relenting the lead, only to regain it with two laps to go – a position she wouldn’t lose again. No one was stopping her. Her dominance in that class is other-worldly.
The keirin has always been Andrews’ strongest discipline, and she’d openly concede to still being an early student of the individual sprint. Well, wherever she got her education for it, should be deemed an Ivy League school. It was hardly an easy road to get there – Andrews had to topple the defending Olympic champion in the 1/8 finals, the reigning world champion in the semi-finals, before facing the world record holder in Lea Friedrich in the final. Andrews claimed the first of the best of three races by almost a bike length, before dishing up a demolition job in the second. Riding wide, before dropping down in front the German, blitzing to victory by a whopping 0.624 seconds.
It’s terrifying to consider that Andrews is still only 24 and has already ascended to sit on the throne of women’s track cycling. Who knows how many more Olympics she has, but there’s no doubt, she’s already our greatest track cyclist.
Logan Swinkels, digital executive producer: Lydia Ko
Yes, Dame Lisa Carrington was golden when it mattered the most in 2024, but so was Lydia Ko - whom is a Dame herself now.
The Kiwi golfer took us on a thrill ride through August: starting with the Olympic gold medal that saw her qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame, and capped off with her third major championship, winning the Women’s British Open at the iconic Old Course at St Andrews.
The time difference between New Zealand and Europe is often not favourable for Kiwi sport fans, but Ko’s incredible swing of good form at just the right time was perfect and well worth staying up for.
She definitely wasn’t the only one shedding a few tears when the national anthem played out at Le Golf National.
Stephen Foote, digital producer: Lydia Ko
It seems almost disrespectful to bypass a candidate who won a trio of gold medals in Dame Lisa Carrington, but that's how impressive Lydia Ko has been in 2024.
One of the most beloved Kiwi athletes in recent memory took another gargantuan step towards immortality this year, proving her mettle by bouncing back from a disappointing 2023 in phenomenal fashion.
In perhaps the most remarkable month ever seen by a New Zealander, Ko completed her set of Olympic medals with gold in Paris, then backed that by winning the most prestigious of majors at the British Open. Two weeks later, she scooped the Queen City Championship to claim back-to-back titles.
En route, she finished the significant sidequest of becoming the youngest player ever to earn a spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame, just to stamp that seal of greatness.
Did we mention she's still only 27 years old?
